Brock Mosley had planned to go fishing Monday, but those plans were put on hold when a fire engulfed a barn on the Collinsville, Miss., property where his parents’ and grandparents’ houses are located early Monday morning.
Mosley said he was awoken at 4 a.m. today by a phone call from his father, alerting him to the fire. Mosley, who lives five miles away, said by the time he arrived, there was no chance to salvage anything. No one was injured.
Lost in the blaze were a truck the family used for hunting, several pieces of farm equipment, truck caps and the Ranger 198 bass boat Mosley and his dad assembled themselves several years ago. It’s the boat Mosley usually fishes out of when he’s waiting for his new tournament boat to arrive.
“He’s bummed out and I don’t blame him,” said Mosley, who usually stores his tournament boat in one of the barn’s storage bays. “If I had to choose, I would’ve rather it been one of mine instead of his. I get a new one each year.”
Mosley said a good portion of his father’s fishing tackle was also destroyed and so was roughly 25 percent of his tackle, which he kept in an enclosed portion of the barn.
“My dad lost probably over half of his fishing stuff between the shed and the boat,” he added. “He's the kind that take everything out of his boat every time he uses it. I feel bad he lost most of his stuff and his boat in the barn.”
Mosley’s parents and grandparents live in separate homes on the 7-acre plot and the barn structure was located behind the houses. He said a neighbor’s dog began barking when the fire began and the neighbors called 911 before waking the Mosleys by knocking on their door.
“There’s no telling how long it’d been burning,” Mosley said. “This all went down between 3:30 and 4 this morning.”
He said fire officials had the blaze under control by 7 a.m. He believes an electrical issue was to blame.
He’s thankful his family was not injured during the fire.
“That’s the positive side of this,” he said, “It could’ve been worse. It could’ve been one of the houses. What scared me is I had four missed calls at 4 a.m. from my dad, who was trying to call me. When you see that, you know that something’s not right. I’m just glad it wasn’t something medical.”
