JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Tracy Potter has been in the same house in the Fort Caroline area for more than 30 years. But last Saturday, he watched as many of those memories were burned away in a matter of minutes. <\/p>\n
Potter said he, his fianc\u00e9e Emelie, his 9-year-old son, Weston, and his 6-year-old daughter, Luna, were heading home from a flag football practice that day when his 21-year-old son, who was at home with his 19-year-old son, called in a panic. <\/p>\n
\u201cHe said, \u2018Dad, the house is on fire.\u2019 And, you know, he\u2019s usually pretty calm and collected. But I could hear in his voice that it wasn\u2019t good. So we raced home,\u201d said Potter. <\/p>\n
>>> STREAM ACTION NEWS JAX LIVE <<<<\/a><\/p>\n Potter told us he and his family could see the cloud of smoke coming from their home while they were driving back. By the time they pulled up, he said the house was in flames, the Jacksonville Fire Rescue Department was already responding, and there was nothing he could do. <\/p>\n \u201cWe were kind of able to see the devastation, which was, you know, pretty bad,\u201d Potter said. <\/p>\n The fire started after a candle was left burning on the back porch, which Potter said was discovered by one of his sons who was still at home when it happened. <\/p>\n Potter bought the house from his mother after she moved out of the country. He said his mother had bought the house when she and his father were separated, and he was raised there. Potter has since raised his four kids there, but his youngest two kids may not get to finish their childhood years inside the house. <\/p>\n \u201cIt\u2019s just 30 years of memories. You know, me growing up, my older boys growing up, and then them, you know, starting to grow up here,\u201d Potter said, \u201cThat\u2019s tough, you know, just going inside and seeing the way that it is now, in comparison to what it\u2019s been like for the last 30 or something years.\u201d <\/p>\n The Jacksonville Fire Rescue Department has already reported<\/a> more than 30 house fires this year. JFRD reported 510 house fires in 2025, 61 more than the number reported in 2024. Almost two dozen of last year\u2019s reported house fires were in or near the Fort Caroline area. <\/p>\n Action News Jax requested a month-by-month breakdown of last year\u2019s reported house fires through JFRD, including the reasons they were caused. We\u2019re still waiting to receive those records. <\/p>\n Potter and his family are in a hotel for now, but they said they\u2019re committed to standing strong as a family despite what they lost to the flames. <\/p>\n \u201cWe went from, you know, an almost 2000 square foot house, and we\u2019re now in a 200 square foot bedroom, but we\u2019re just still thankful we have each other,\u201d said Potter. <\/p>\n If you would like to support the Potter family during this time, you can do so by clicking the link here. <\/a><\/p>\n [DOWNLOAD: Free Action News Jax app for alerts as news breaks<\/a>]<\/p>\n [SIGN UP: Action News Jax Daily Headlines Newsletter<\/a>] <\/p>\n Click here<\/a> to download the free Action News Jax news and weather apps, click here<\/a> to download the Action News Jax Now app for your smart TV and click here<\/a> to stream Action News Jax live.<\/p>\n Action News Jax Top Stories<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"JACKSONVILLE, Fla. \u2014 Tracy Potter has been in the same house in the Fort Caroline area for more…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":125813,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[8],"tags":[344,347,62335,28,348,116,28313,351,118,117,349,350,346,345],"class_list":["post-125812","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-jacksonville","tag-action-news-jax","tag-cbs47","tag-cloud-of-smoke","tag-florida","tag-fox30","tag-jacksonville","tag-jacksonville-fire-rescue","tag-jacksonville-fl","tag-jacksonville-headlines","tag-jacksonville-news","tag-northeast-florida","tag-southeast-georgia","tag-wfox","tag-wjax"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125812","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=125812"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/125812\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/125813"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=125812"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=125812"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/us-fl\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=125812"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}