‘In a matter of minutes, they could be gone:’ 13-year-old Baker County teen killed in camper fire

BAKER COUNTY, Fla. — A family is left picking up the pieces after a deadly camper fire took the life of a 13-year-old Baker County teen early Wednesday morning.

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The victim, Avery Brown, attended nearby Baker County Middle School.

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“Give them all the love you can because you don’t know. One day, just in a matter of minutes, they could be gone,” Lana Hunter, Avery’s great-grandmother, said.

The Baker County Sheriff’s Office believes a space heater caused the blaze.

Hunter told Action News Jax her daughter, Avery’s grandmother, had recently taken Avery in, and had been staying in a camper on Hunter’s property for about two weeks.

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“They come up to my house hollering that there was a fire and Christie thought that Avery was at my house, but she had come back down here in the process and we didn’t realize that she was in the camper when it went up in flame,” Hunter said.

Hunter said Avery was a sweet loving child and her loss comes as a devastating blow to the family.

“I’ll probably remember everything about her. How sweet and precious she was. Just starting out really in life and all,” Hunter said.

With a space heater being the suspected cause of this deadly blaze, Hunter made this plea to those planning on using the devices this winter.

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“Whatever you do, don’t use it at night. Make sure you unplug it before you go to bed at night. They’re very, very dangerous and I just can’t emphasize that enough to people,” Hunter said.

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