Woman killed in Lapeer County mobile home fire remembered as having 'a heart of gold'

DRYDEN TOWNSHIP, Mich. (FOX 2) - One of the four people who died Monday in a Lapeer County mobile home fire is being remembered for the kind person she was in her community.

Zola Rogers, her granddaughter, and her two teenage great-grandchildren died in the Dryden Township fire.

Original Report: Four family members killed in massive fire

"There was a very loud explosion, I heard it at five or so in the morning. It shook my house. I want and looked out on my windows, and when I got over there the house was just blazing," Sue Putnam said. "It’s so hard to believe anything like that would happen. I’ve never seen a house go up so fast in my life."

Putnam said Rogers was her friend.

"I really don’t know what to say; it’s just sinking in that this happened," she said. "She was a good lady. She had a heart of gold. She loved her family."

She described Rogers as a friend anyone would be lucky to have.

"Zola was like kind of the watchdog around the community. She was always looking at people, being nice to them," she said.

A cross and flowers are next to what is left of the home in remembrance of the lives lost.

"It was nice of people to care and do that," Putnam said.

Putnam and other neighbors said investigators were at the scene again Tuesday as they try to piece together what happened.