Sooke Volunteer Firefighters had to both douse propane tanks and dodge bullets while fighting a trailer fire early Wednesday morning.
Firefighters called to a property on Walse-A Road on T’Sou-ke Nation land at about 6:15 a.m. found a 30-foot fifth-wheel trailer fully engulfed, Fire Chief Steve Sorensen said.
They first had to hose down and disconnect two propane tanks — one 30 pounds and one 100 pounds — that were under the trailer’s overhang. About a half a dozen empty propane bottles were also found by the trailer and had to be removed.
“So once we cooled them down and knocked the fire away from that area, we just disconnected them and pulled them out,” Sorensen said.
Fighting the fire was made more complicated when heat caused live ammunition in the trailer to discharge.
“Toward the end, some of the ammunition started to go off, so we kind of pulled back for a few minutes until it cooled down,” Sorensen said.
He said the lone male occupant had left the trailer to investigate why his power had gone out. He discovered a breaker had tripped and turned it back on, but when he returned inside the trailer, he noticed smoke.
“Then he saw the fire and called us,” Sorensen said.
It took about two hours to put the fire out.
No one was hurt and the cause of the fire is still under investigation.
“Whether it was an electrical fire that started or something that burned and melted the electrical is yet to be determined,” Sorensen said.
The trailer was a total write-off. There was no damage estimate.
