A fire early Sunday morning at a mobile home park in Atlantic killed two people. The call from the Sycamore Village neighborhood came in just before one A.M. Atlantic Fire Chief Mark McNees says when police and sheriff’s deputies arrived on the scene, they noticed smoke and flames were billowing from the structure.
McNees says when the fire department arrived they also saw heavy smoke and flames and they received a report of people trapped inside the mobile home. Atlantic Police Officer Mark Freeman and firefighters approached the back door and discovered a female victim inside. Rescue crews performed C-P-R on the woman and transported her to the Cass County Memorial Hospital in Atlantic. During the course of fighting the blaze, they discovered a man inside the bedroom of the home.
The victims are identified as 63-year-old Gary Pearce and 65-year-old Linda Adams of Atlantic. Their bodies were sent to Ankeny for autopsy. Neighbors say the couple had lived in the home for many years. Pearce was a long-time employee of Henningsen Construction in Atlantic. The couple’s dog was also lost in the blaze.
The State Fire Marshal’s office and Cass County Medical Examiner, Doctor Elaine Berry, were called in to conduct an investigation into the cause of the fire and deaths. McNees says a single-circuit short in the main electrical entrance main the floor of the home was to blame. McNeese says prior to this incident, it had been nearly seven years since Atlantic experienced a double fatality as the result of a fire.