
                         Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: TUESDAY, November 8, 1994                   TAG: 9411080121
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: LOCAL   EDITION: METRO 
SOURCE: RICHARD FOSTER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Short

ARSON SUSPECTED IN MONTVALE FIRE

A fire early Sunday morning at the storage yard of a Montvale mobile home leasing company is being investigated as a possible arson.

State police and investigators from the Bedford County Sheriff's office, looking for clues to the fire's origin, sifted through the ashes of a gutted, red-and-white double-wide trailer Sunday and Monday at Bob Karnes Mobile Home Movers on Virginia 827.

The Montvale Volunteer Fire Company, which is across the road from the leasing business, responded to the fire around 9:30 a.m. Sunday. The fire gutted most of the vacant trailer's interior. Karnes said the trailer, which belonged to the Manassas-based Williams Mobile Office Co., was a total loss, estimated at $80,000.

Karnes' company rents trailers to construction firms and also moves trailers. He said it was the second time vandals have struck his lot in two months. Previously, all the windows were broken in the same trailer that burned Sunday. The windows had just been replaced and the trailer was due to be serviced this week before it could be rented again.

by CNB