MANNS HARBOR Seventeen-year-old Andrew Miggels was home alone early Wednesday evening when he smelled the smoke.
Unwrapped Christmas gifts still sat under the tree downstairs, and Andrew’s college applications were ready for mailing, said his dad, Kevin Miggels. Andrew looked outside and saw flames under the house, then left so fast he didn’t have time to put his shoes on.
He was not injured.
A few miles away, Kevin Miggels, his wife Candice and their 21-year-old son John were on their way home. Candice got the call on her cell phone: The house they’d lived in for nearly three years was engulfed in flames so big you could see them across the Croatan Sound.
Firefighters from Roanoke Island, Stumpy Point, Manns Harbor and Colington responded. Within an hour, little was left of the home at 7001 Old Manns Harbor Road except for front porch steps and charred pilings. Firefighters sprayed water on the neighboring house as the wind blew glowing embers toward it.
The Miggels' home was valued at $360,600, according to Dare County tax records. It was unclear what caused the fire, but Kevin Miggels said it may have started in a Ford truck parked beneath the house based on what his son Andrew saw.
The Manns Harbor postmaster, Carolee Tillett, said she saw the flames from the nearby post office’s window just before 5 p.m. “It just went boom and the whole house was on fire. It just went so quick,” she said.
Kevin Miggels was trying to take everything in as he watched the burning remains of his home from across the road: insurance, Andrew with no shoes, the loss of the Christmas gifts, the college applications that have to be mailed after the first of the year.
“Everything we own is gone,” he said. “This is really weird. You always think it’ll never happen to you. Here it has happened to me.”
Kristin Davis, (252) 441-1623, kristin.davis@pilotonline.com
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