Fire destroys Palmyra home

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BY CORY MATTESON/Lincoln Journal Star

After firefighters from Palmyra, Bennet, Douglas and Unadilla had contained the blaze, Tiffany Maahs went inside her Palmyra home, where normally she could find videos of the three kids’ births, wedding photos of her and her husband, Dan, and a cat they just called Kitty.

None of them was there anymore.

Instead, she said, “Everything’s black. Black and muddy.”

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Firefighters from Palmyra, Bennet and Douglas responded to a blaze at 585 W. Third St. in Palmyra. (Courtesy of Burke Brown)

One of the kids’ damaged toys tried to gargle out the alphabet, she said on the phone from her parents’ house Thursday evening.

There wasn’t much left inside 585 W. Third St.

“The living part of the house was a total loss,” Palmyra Volunteer Fire Chief Richard Jurey said.

Other than the cat, no one was at home when the fire began. Tiffany Maahs had two of the couple’s kids, Mason, 4, and Madison, 23 months, with her; she was driving to Lincoln to donate some clothes to the Salvation Army.

When she got a call about the fire, she headed home — keeping the clothes.

The couple’s other child, Cayden, 5, was in school.

Dan, a trucker, was driving in Pennsylvania.

Tiffany Maahs said she got home at about 10:30 a.m., a little over an hour after emergency crews first received reports about the fire at 9:20. She saw flames shooting out from every opening in the house, from the windows, the doors and the newly missing roof. The fire’s heat also triggered her husband’s gun shells.

“It sounded like the Fourth of July,” she said.

Neighbors and friends offered help to the family.

Pastor Pat Norris and friends who attend Palmyra United Methodist with the Maahs family helped, but so did neighbors  Maahs knew less well.

The man across the street opened up his garage, where they hold family parties on the weekends, and offered to store the Maahs’ riding lawnmower. Then he set up a buffet table. Across the street from the smoldering doublewide, a luncheon took place, Maahs said.

A woman up the block brought Maahs gloves and a scarf. Another brought food. People asked what size clothes the kids wear. The owners of the Palmyra Bar a few blocks down offered dinner.

“It’s a loving community. A loving, caring community,” she said.

The fire apparently started Thursday morning, according to the state fire marshal’s preliminary investigation, from a faulty cord connected to a living room floor lamp — the one Maahs said always seemed to have a mind of its own.

Jurey  estimated that damage to the home and its contents surpassed $110,000.

Today, Maahs said, she will be going back over to the house to meet with an insurance agent, who told her the family would get a $2,000 check immediately.

The Maahs might check into a hotel this weekend, and then they’ll probably use some of the money to find a rental in Palmyra or Bennet, until they can build a new home there.

Tiffany Maahs couldn’t think of any reason why they’d leave.

Reach Cory Matteson at 473-2655 or cmatteson@journalstar.com.