Mark Schneider’s boots crunched on blackened debris as he pointed out the burned remains of shoulder mounts still on the wall — there an elk, here a bison. 

“It’s all gone,” he said.

The cabin and an attached garage were destroyed in an early Thursday morning fire, but no one was injured.

Mark, who lives nearby on the ranch property, said his nephew Matthew George was sleeping at the main house with Mark’s elderly parents, Jerry and Mickey Schneider, and a teen the family has guardianship of. George and the teen helped get everyone to safety.

“Thank God … my nephew woke up and got everyone out,” Mark said. 

The Clark Fire Department responded to the blaze and called for aid from their counterparts in Powell, who sent two trucks and a half-dozen personnel to help fight the fire.

The property is surrounded by cottonwood trees and on Thursday afternoon, blackened limbs were visible far above the house.

“We were trying to fight fire around there, and there were tree branches burning off and falling the entire time,” said Clark Fire Chief Nate Hoffert. “So it was kind of a hairy situation — you had to kind of keep an eye on trees while you’re trying to fight fire.”

A Clark firefighter was hit on the helmet by a falling branch, but appeared to be OK, Hoffert said. 

He said Thursday that an investigation was still ongoing and described the cause as accidental or unknown. Hoffert said it appeared the fire started near the door that connected the cabin and garage.

It was the second fire on the property this year, Hoffert said, as a barn burned in the spring. 

The cabin lost on Thursday was built by hand by Jerry Schneider in the early 1970s. Mark Schneider said he and his brother moved to the cabin when they were 3 years old. 

For years, the property served as a youth ranch for troubled teenage boys, beginning as the Mount Carmel Youth Ranch, then Triangle Cross Ranch and, most recently, Sunlight Mountain Boys Ranch. The youth ranch, which faced litigation and scrutiny, is no longer in operation.

Following Thursday’s fire, the Schneiders and the other family member living in the house moved to the ranch bunkhouse. In addition to burning a host of items, including family heirlooms, the fire also consumed all of the clothes of the teen the family had taken in.

Jacob Christofalos is an eighth grader at Powell Middle School and when school district bus driver Janelle Loyning heard about the fire, she whipped into action to help the teen. 

“My bus kids are my kids,” she said. “I’d do anything for them.”

Loyning posted on a community social media page describing the situation and what Christofalos needed, including wrestling clothes and gear. The community stepped up quickly, and by mid-morning Loyning posted to say she’d already received enough of much of what had been requested. On Thursday afternoon she drove a whole load of clothes gathered from community members to Clark to give to Christofalos. Members of the wrestling community provided all of the gear he needed to make sure he would still be able to compete in the middle school home tournament on Saturday. 

“I’m overwhelmed by the response,” Loyning said.

Meanwhile, a fundraiser for Jerry and Mickey Schneider has been set up online at givesendgo.com/GDVWQ.