DURANGO, Colo. - The Hendricks family was in Phoenix for nine days. They came back to a house with no back door, a burned carpet, and a bill from La Plata Electric for a period during which, as far as they can tell, nobody was home.
"The stove was on when the fire crew got here," said Dana Hendricks. "That's the part people don't believe. Not that a bear got in. That it turned the stove on and left it on."
The fire did not spread past the living room. A cast-iron skillet on the burner had been dragged, at some point, into the middle of the carpet, which fire investigators believe is what kept the flames off the cabinetry.
The detail that bothers her
Hendricks keeps returning to the breaker box, which sits in a utility closet off the kitchen behind a door that latches.
The door was open. The panel cover was on the floor. Nothing inside had been damaged.
"It knew where the breaker box was. I don't know what else to tell you. It went straight there and it didn't touch anything else in that closet."
Dana Hendricks, Durango
La Plata County Fire Rescue logged the cause as animal intrusion. The county has recorded nine such calls since May, four of them on Cedar Bench Road.
The Hendricks' insurer has classified the loss as fire damage of animal origin, a category that exists mainly for rodents chewing wiring and which carries no deductible adjustment. Their adjuster told them the claim was straightforward.
"He said it was the easiest paperwork he'd done all month," Hendricks said. "I told him that made one of us."