Young mother grabs newborn, runs from trailer home moments before it burns to the ground

CHUBBUCK — When Allysa Hirschi, 27, opened a window to her family’s camper on June 18, she heard a crackling sound.

At first she didn’t think much of it, but the crackle and popping sound continued. She looked out the back window to see what it was and saw smoke gathering up behind the camper, right next to where their propane tanks sat.

“I knew that I needed to get out of there,” Allysa said.

Allysa acted quickly. She scooped up her four-month-old son Hayes from his bassinet and grabbed their dog, Yeti, and ran outside. Hayes remained asleep as she put some distance between them and the camper where they and her husband, Justin Hirschi, 28, had been living for three years.

“At that moment, I just saw more and more smoke,” Allysa said.

She called 911 as she ran to her neighbor’s trailer. When the neighbor saw the smoke billowing up, he ran toward the camper and entered to grab a fire extinguisher. When he used it on the smoking electrical box, it didn’t make a difference, so he ran back towards Allysa, still on the phone.

“Not very long into our conversation with emergency services, our camper was completely up in flames,” she said.

After the neighbor ran away, the propane tank exploded and Justin and Allysa’s temporary home caught fire. Thanks to it’s storage capability, nearly all of their possessions were inside.

Justin, who works construction, got a call from Allysa, “The trailer is burning. I need you home.”

“So I dropped my tools and took off,” Justin said.

As Justin turned onto New Day Parkway, he could see smoke coming from where the camper was at the intersection of Hiline Road and Cemetery Road.

“By the time I made it out there, there was huge plumes of smoke and tall, tall flames. The camper was totally engulfed,” Justin said.

Despite this, Justin was relieved when he pulled up to the fire because he found his family a safe distance away.

“This is all just stuff that’s burning,” Justin thought.

According to Fire Chief Brian Curtis of the North Bannock Fire Department, the camper was completely burned within around 15 minutes. When they arrived on the scene, the Fort Hall Fire Department was already working to extinguish the fire, so they supplied them with water and assisted in the effort.

With the camper being a total loss, the young family is now living with Justin’s mother for the foreseeable future. Justin and Allysa consider themselves lucky that the events of the day transpired the way they did.

That morning, the family had a plumber come out to their camper to unclog their plumbing system, and he had left ten minutes before the fire started. Because of this, it smelled horrible inside the camper.

Allysa was opening the windows to air out the trailer when she heard the electrical box popping. Ordinarily, she takes a nap at the same time as Hayes.

With her heart racing as she ran away from the camper, all that she could think about was how glad she was that she had Hayes and Yeti with her.

“I always thought about things I would do in an emergency and I never actually thought that it was gonna happen to me,” Allysa said.

Before the explosion, Allysa said that she was “a little bit in denial.”

“Maybe the whole thing won’t burn down,” Allysa thought. “It was just so hard to imagine where we lived, where our safe place was, was now going to be gone.”

The family was living in that camper temporarily while they were working on building a house to live in. This fire came at a time when they were making progress on the paperwork needed to begin construction.

The fire brings some uncertainty to the building process, because the family’s insurance company isn’t covering the lost property inside the camper. In order to assist them, Jenna Ryan, a family friend, has started a GoFundMe campaign to help them replace some of their necessities.

So far, the campaign has raised $3,870 of its $20,000 goal. There’s been 50 donations so far.

Justin and Allysa are thankful for this, as well as other help provided by people in the community. Some people have brought over baby clothes and other supplies for Hayes.

While the family has to rebuild their lives, Allysa is thankful, “that there is a higher power watching over us.”

“Things can be replaced, but human life can’t,” Allysa said.

“We lost everything but the things that matter most,” Justin said.