Santa Land fire ruled accidental - KAIT-Jonesboro, AR-News, weather, sports

Investigators have ruled a fire at Santa Land near Lindale over the weekend accidental.

However, a pickup truck is a total loss after it caught fire Saturday evening in line, located just off of interstate 20.

"The car obviously stalled or ran hot and then went up the hill and just caught on fire," Santa Land owner, Cindy Palmer said.

Officials say the pickup truck caught fire near the tunnel of lights, and that some of the surrounding lights and property was damaged. The truck is a total loss.

Palmer said the employees tried to put the fire out first with their fire extinguishers, but the flames were too powerful, so they called Lindale fire.

"When we got there we did see one truck that was fully involved in fire. We had to use two brush trucks to get it out," Lindale Fire Dept. Captain, Bobby Wallert, said.

Michael Noebels, his wife and two daughters got out of the truck safely the truck got out safely.
Firefighters had to make their way past a long line of cars that were blocking the burning truck.

"They had to move a lot of cars to the side. We actually had to drive over lights to get to the center dividers to get pass cars to get to a point to go backwards through the park to get to where the car was on fire. It was quite a chore," Captain Wallert said.

There was only slight damage to the tunnel of lights, where the fire occurred. Palmer said the damaged lights should be completely repaired by tomorrow.

"Nothing is going to delay anything that took place. The trailers are running fine. Everything is still in tack. It will take my husband about two hours to fix the lights in the tunnel, so everything is fine," Palmer said.

No injuries were reported. The owners say that they re-opened a short time later and are planning to be open as scheduled for the remainder of the season.

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