{"id":43485,"date":"2021-12-01T00:31:53","date_gmt":"2021-12-01T07:31:53","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fire-destroys-la-plata-county-sheriffs-office-deputys-house\/"},"modified":"2026-03-31T03:13:54","modified_gmt":"2026-03-31T09:13:54","slug":"fire-destroys-la-plata-county-sheriffs-office-deputys-house","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/fire-destroys-la-plata-county-sheriffs-office-deputys-house\/","title":{"rendered":"Fire destroys La Plata County Sheriff\u2019s Office deputy\u2019s house"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

\"Los
Los Pinos fire crews do a weekly training outside the Ignacio fire station in September. Crews, equipment, emergency call response \u2013 all are affected by the district\u2019s deepening financial struggles.<\/span>Shannon Mullane\/Durango Herald<\/span><\/figcaption><\/figure>\n<\/p>

A La Plata County Sheriff\u2019s Office deputy\u2019s home was destroyed by fire early Tuesday north of Ignacio.<\/p>\n

The fire was reported shortly after 4 a.m. on County Road 509 by the woman who lived at the home, said Josh Lorenzen, deputy chief of operations with the Los Pinos Fire Protection District.<\/p>\n

\n

To help<\/h4>\n

La Plata County Sheriff\u2019s Office Deputy Tiana Mihalich lost her home Tuesday in an early morning fire north of Ignacio. She rescued her animals, but fire crews were unable to save her home and personal belongings. A friend and coworker is asking the community for donations to help deputy Mihalich recover. The fundraiser seeks to raise about $5,000, and, as of Wednesday, was about halfway there. To donate, visit https:\/\/www.gofundme.com\/f\/house-fire-la-plata-county-deputy<\/a>.<\/p>\n<\/div>\n

The cause of the fire remained under investigation as of midday Tuesday.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe don\u2019t suspect any foul play, we don\u2019t suspect anything suspicious with the fire,\u201d Lorenzen said.<\/p>\n

La Plata County Sheriff Sean Smith said the deputy had been working all night when she learned of the fire.<\/p>\n

\u201cShe was actually working at the time this happened, on patrol, and her home security system alerted her to something and she went to her house and found her house engulfed in flames when she got there,\u201d Smith said.<\/p>\n

Lorenzen said firefighters arrived to a fully involved structure fire, with 80% to 90% of the mobile home engulfed in flames. Firefighters went into a defensive mode, meaning they attacked the blaze from the outside with the goal of preventing it from spreading.<\/p>\n

He said the home is a total loss.<\/p>\n

Smith said the deputy lost \u201cbasically all\u201d of her personal belongings that had been inside the house, but she had rental insurance.<\/p>\n

Her parents arrived in town Tuesday to assist.<\/p>\n

Smith said he reached out to the Hundred Club of Durango, which provides financial assistance to firefighters, law enforcement officers and their family members during tragedy or times of significant need. The club said it planned to provide financial assistance, Smith said.<\/p>\n

Lorenzen said firefighters encountered some \u201cdifficult terrain\u201d upon arriving at the house, \u201cbut nothing out of the ordinary for us.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cJust the access to the residence, it was a longer drive to the residence and pretty much one way in, one way out, which makes it just difficult for apparatus coming in and out,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

No firefighters or other individuals were injured in the fire.<\/p>\n

Two dogs at the house were able to make it out safely, he said.<\/p>\n

shane@durangoherald.com<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n

An earlier version of this story gave an incorrect fire agency that Josh Lorenzen works with. Lorenzen is deputy chief of operations of the Los Pinos Fire Protection District.<\/em><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

successfully escaped blaze north of Ignacio<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":43486,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_acf_changed":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[],"tags":[350,28,1194,1953],"naviga_topic":[],"class_list":["post-43485","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","tag-fire","tag-headlines","tag-la-plata-county-sheriffs-office","tag-los-pinos-fire-protection-district"],"acf":[],"author_name":"dh_admin","_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43485","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=43485"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43485\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":85721,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/43485\/revisions\/85721"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/43486"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=43485"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=43485"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=43485"},{"taxonomy":"naviga_topic","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/dh.durangoherald.com\/tj\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/naviga_topic?post=43485"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}