DIANA (TYLER MORNING TELEGRAPH) — The brother of the fire chief in this
rural Upshur County community died in a fire Saturday night at a camper
where he was living next to his mother's home, county Fire Marshal Paul
Steelman said.
Dewey Randal
'Randy' Hankins, 56, was found dead in the aluminum building on Hankins
Road after firefighters extinguished the blaze, Steelman said. Diana
Volunteer Fire Department Chief Kenny Hankins was among firefighters
from Diana and Ore City who responded to the blaze, reported at 10:18
p.m. by the victim's mother, the fire marshal said. "Right now, I don't
want to speculate on exactly what happened, but I will say the fire
originated in the area where Mr. Hankins was in the camper, and due to
health problems, he was not able to safely exit by himself," Steelman
said Sunday night.
Upshur County Precinct 3 Justice of the Peace
Rhonda Welch, who pronounced Hankins dead at the scene and ordered an
autopsy, said a family member told her Hankins "called his mother on the
phone saying, 'Fire! Fire!'" The woman then looked out a window and
saw smoke, the judge said.
Dewey Hankins was alone in the camper,
which is on a county road off Farm-to-Market 3245 in eastern Upshur
County, Steelman said. The structure was fully involved in flames within
moments after firefighters arrived, but the blaze was quickly
extinguished, Steelman said.
Whether Hankins died of smoke
inhalation will not be known until authorities receive results of the
autopsy, which Judge Welch said was scheduled at the Southeast Texas
Forensic Center near Tyler.
