A fire in a trailer at Omineca trailer court on Thursday caused extensive property damage and killed a small dog.
“The trailer was pretty well thrashed and we haven’t determined the cause yet, it’s still under investigation,” said acting Fire Chief, Jim Hurtado.
The fire department first responded to the fire just before noon after a neighbor saw smoke coming out of the porch and called to report it.
After extinguishing the fire, crews had to go back again in the early afternoon when it flared up a second time.
“We had to go back a second time which is not uncommon,” said Hurtado.
“What had happened is the fire was in the wall there and it kind of flared up again,” he said.
Hurtado added that before leaving the first time, the fire crew checked for heat in the walls with a thermo-camera but it didn’t pick up the ongoing fire.
“Unfortunately this is a common occurence of house fires,” he said.
“Without doing extensive overhaul which is tearing everything apart the first time, you can’t always be sure.
After the second go round we made sure we sure we had everything - we tore the ceiling out and everything,” he added.
The occupiers had just left the trailer and gone downtown before the fire flared up, but a small dog was in the house and was killed as a result of smoke inhalation.
“Trailer houses are notorious for this - you get fire in one end and you get smoke and heat damage in the other - it’s like a stove pipe,” said Hurtado.
Both fire trucks attended the incident and a crew of 14 worked on extinguishing the fire.
“We had lots of manpower, but somewhere we missed something - it happens quite regularly - especially on structure fires,” said Hurtado.