INTERLACHEN, Fla. — Less than three months after Harrison Brantley and Crystal Eiland bought their mobile home in Interlachen, they watched it burn down.
Putnam County Fire Rescue said their house was lost after a heat lamp left on overnight caught fire. Brantley said he woke up at around 3:30 AM on Wednesday to the sound of a loud wind, then looked out of his window and saw half of his new home in flames.
“We grabbed the dog, grabbed our phones and we left,” Brantley said, “I just sat over there in the driveway by the brush pile screaming. There were a lot of emotions, a lot of anger, a lot of hurt.”
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Brantley and Eiland told us they spent years suffering from a drug addiction, but came together in recovery to start rebuilding their lives together. They recently started new jobs, bought their home in December, then, a little more than two months later, watched the home they worked for fall apart.
“I just shut down,” said Eiland, “I don’t think I’ve ever cried as hard as I did that night.”
Putnam County Fire Rescue said a nearby wildfire was burning at the same time that the house fire started. Deputy Fire Marshal Clu Wright told us the smoke from the wildfire was so heavy, firefighters couldn’t see in front of them while trying to respond to the house fire.
“We had to drive really, really slow and if you actually rolled down your window, you couldn’t even see the lines on the road,” Wright said.
Wright said Brantley and Eiland’s home likely burned down in less than 15 minutes. He told us their home didn’t have a sprinkler and, because of the already dry conditions, there wasn’t much that could be done to put the fire out.
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Putnam County Fire Rescue has reported more than a dozen fires in the last week, between brush fires, structure fires and house fires. Wright believes fire crews have responded to an average of 5-6 fires per day since last weekend, which he said is much busier than usual.
“There’s been a lot more people open burning and not paying attention to the wind and the humidity. So, if they don’t do that, the fire can escape and, you know, get into other areas,” Wright said.
When Action News Jax arrived at Brantley and Eiland’s property, the two told us they’d found burnt pages from the Bible scattered around what was left of their house, some of the verses on which were still readable.
Like their faith, the pages were one of the few things to survive the fire.
“God is the only reason we’re still here. God deserves all the glory,” Brantley said, “when we get through this, nothing is going to stop us.”
Brantley and Eiland’s church, Life Church of Palatka, has started raising money to support the couple as they rebuild their lives. If you would like to support them, you can do so by clicking here, then click on the drop down menu and select “Harrison and Crystal.”
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