Springville home destroyed in fire

SPRINGVILLE — Tom and Theresa Allison were on their way home from Porterville Wednesday evening when they learned their house was on fire.

Their 2,800-square-foot home in the 1600 block of Cattle Drive was totally destroyed by the fire that started just after 7 p.m.

Theresa Allison was returning from church services at the Porterville Church of the Nazarene, she said, and Tom was headed home from the office of their home inspection business.

The two-story structure was fully engulfed by the time they arrived, Theresa said.

The Tulare County Fire Department has listed the cause as undetermined, but “there’s a strong possibility that it was electrical,” Chief Joe Garcia said.

The investigator told Theresa Allison that it appeared an electrical short in the wall between the garage and an upstairs bedroom caused the fire, she said.

Her son Bill Barnes, 24, was the only person home at the time of the fire and was setting up Christmas decorations as a surprise for his two younger sisters, ages 6 and 11, when he noticed smoke.

Six engines responded to the scene about 40 minutes later—by that time, the house was 80 percent engulfed in fire. Damage to the home, and its contents is estimated at $600,000, authorities report.  

Barnes was able to get onto an upstairs deck to release the family’s birds from the aviary.

“He got the animals out and that was all,” Allison said.

On Thursday afternoon another of Allison’s sons, Corey Barnes, was at the house with his friend Nick Phillips to see if anything could be salvaged. A handful of most charred documents were in the blackened metal skeleton of what had been a filing cabinet.

“This was a Canon camera,” he said, holding up a blob of black plastic.

“The structure is pretty well down to the ground, pretty well destroyed,” Garcia said.

By telephone Thursday afternoon, Theresa Allison said she is still in shock, but thankful for the efforts of firefighters from Springville and Terra Bella, and help from neighbors.

One neighbor, who lost her own home and pets to a fire a few years ago, brought leashes and took charge of the family’s animals and is keeping them temporarily.

Although nothing could be salvaged from the home, firefighters worked through the night to make sure the fire was completely out, she said.

The Allison family has lived in the home about seven years and in Springville for about 14 years. They are currently staying with family in Porterville.

“We’re very blessed,” Theresa Allison said. “This could have been so much worse. We’re all alive. We were told that if the fire had started at 2 a.m. while we were all sleeping, it would have gone so fast we wouldn’t have made it out alive.”

Jenna Chandler contributed to this story.

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