A double-wide trailer in the Pine Valley Trailer Park on Dubois Road north of Williams Lake was completely destroyed in a blaze Saturday evening.
At 9:55 p.m. the Williams Lake Fire Department received a report that a house trailer was on fire and responded, calling in the Wildwood Volunteer Fire Department to bring an extra tender.
“We took four different apparatus from here,” said Williams Lake Deputy Fire Chief Rob Warnock. “When we arrived it was fully involved.”
The fire was under control in about 45 minutes and by 12:30 a.m. crews were mopping it up.
Next door neighbour Janice Idler called in the fire.
“I was sitting in our living room when I noticed something reflecting on our water distiller,” Idler said Monday after the fire. “When I asked my husband Michael what it was, he looked outside and could see flames in our neighbours’ windows. He yelled fire. I reached for the phone and called 911.”
Michael went running outside screaming his neighbours’ names and soon realized the couple had safely run out the back door and were standing on the road in their bare feet, with only the clothes on their backs.
“It went so fast,” Janice said of the fire. “Within 15 minutes the entire place was engulfed. I’m just heart-sick for them.”
The Idlers also received extensive damage to their home when heat from the fire melted the vinyl siding on the part of the house directly next door to the fire, and all of the windows were cracked from the heat.
Warnock credited the crews for doing a great job knocking down the fire.
The fire is under investigation and the cause is unknown.
