‘I watched the house fall’: Survivor of La Pine house fire recounts tragedy that claimed his brother’s life

'Starting over is going to be hard,' Mark Mooneyham says

LA PINE, Ore. (KTVZ) -- A La Pine man who survived a house fire that claimed his brother's life talked with us Sunday about the tragedy and how he must start over again after losing everything.

La Pine firefighters, assisted by Deschutes County sheriff's deputies, were dispatched early Saturday just after midnight to battle a house fire on Old Mill Road. The house was engulfed in flames, neighbors even reported hearing explosions. 

Fire victim David Hill, 67, lived with his younger brother, Mark Mooneyham, who said the smoke alarm went off, alerting him to the flames that night.

 According to Mooneyham, his brother apparently fell asleep while drinking, with a cigarette in his hand. 

Hill and his dog perished in the fire. Mooneyham made it out alive, and a woman who lived in an RV on the property called 911.

 "I watched the house fall, and I couldn't do anything about it," Mooneyham said. "It's going to take time to start over again, and 65 years old, and starting over is going to be hard."

A neighbor and friend of the brothers, Randy Dunham, said, "Good news was my friend did make it out. The bad news is that he has the loss of a brother, which I sure, I'm sure is hard to take. Like he said, he relives it every night."

Fire officials said the cause of the fire was not criminal in nature.  A total of 12 fire apparatus responded to the scene, along with more than 20 firefighters from five agencies.

They held the fire damage to structures on the property, with minor damage to neighboring structures and fences.