Brookhaven family must start over after devastating house fire

Published 12:37 pm Monday, July 28, 2025

When Lorenzo and Tinesha Haines left home this past weekend, they did not expect to return to the charred remnants of their everyday lives.

At 6:58 p.m. Saturday, the Brookhaven Fire Department received a call to respond to a house fire at 643 South Second St. For almost two hours, firefighters worked to extinguish the flames, protect other nearby structures, and make sure the fire would not rekindle.

Fire Chief Jeff Ainsworth said the fire had already been burning for several minutes by the time his department received the call.

“Her cameras went out at 6:51 and the call came at 6:58. Those are precious minutes,” Ainsworth said.

However the fire began, flames apparently knocked out the power before spreading to the attic, in a space between ceilings, said Ainsworth. The blaze was difficult to extinguish from the heart pine tongue-and-groove slats there, he said, but the structure as a whole is still standing.

“It was a ‘typical’ house fire,” he said. “But no one was home, and no one got hurt.”

Tinesha said she was very grateful for that fact, even as she was dealing with the loss of irreplaceable personal items. A welder, Lorenzo was able to salvage his work tools and equipment from the home, and for what could not be saved, he said he had backups in storage at his mother’s home. What they really need, they said, were clothes.

A Go Fund Me account has been set up at https://gofund.me/c9d0ae37 to help the Haines family rebuild from scratch. The duo is staying temporarily in a hotel, but the cost makes that a short-term solution, said Lorenzo. “Anything helps.”

“We’re also looking for a used trailer or single-wide,” Tinesha said. “We have land to put it on.”

Anything is beneficial to the couple, who credits God with making sure they were safe and for providing for them.

Standing in the driveway next to the blackened frame of their home, they both smiled as Lorenzo said, “God is good, for sure.”