Anna Earls had just gone to sleep after working a night shift when she was awakened by loud knocking on the door of her home in Blackhoof Township.
Her daughter opened the door to find a classmate and neighbor telling her the trailer nearby on their property was on fire.
Earls said she called 911 at 9:55 a.m. and by then the 20-plus-year-old trailer was burning.
The trailer housed almost all of the family's possessions.
"Everything we own was in there," Earls said. "Birth certificates, photos, antique furniture, everything except our bedroom sets and a few items we had in the other trailer."
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Thirty-one firefighters from seven area departments including Blackhoof Township, Barnum, Carlton, Esko, Mahtowa, Moose Lake and Wrenshall responded to the blaze.
Searing heat from the hot day didn't help the situation.
"It's not a good day for a fire," said Carlton Fire Chief Steve White.
The cause of the fire was not immediately known but White said with the combination of hot sun and the family's piled-up belongings in the metal building, fire could have ignited nearly anywhere.
Earls and her three kids watched as firefighters soaked the flames and as an excavator arrived to take down the structure.
"My dolls and our photos!" exclaimed her daughter, Hannah Burkhalter, 14, as she considered what was in the trailer.
Once the excavator finished taking apart the trailer and firefighters gave the go-ahead, Burkhalter started searching through singed and soaked items and was thrilled to find a salvageable doll she received when she was baby.
"She's been with me all my life," she said hugging the doll.
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Her brother Daniel Burkhalter, 15, found a stuffed animal given to him during an ambulance ride when he was just two years old.
"They're only material things," Earls said. "We should be thankful that it isn't worse."
Pine Journal Editor Lisa Baumann can be contacted at: lbaumann@pinejournal.com .
