A rampant fire on a windy morning reduced a fifth-wheel trailer to ashes and melted a nearby greenhouse on Nov. 17 on Kaltasin Road.
The Sooke Fire Department received the call at 2:54 a.m. from nearby residents, said Fire Chief Steve Sorensen.
“Several people reported several explosions,” he said. One lady said she heard eight (explosions).”
He suspects what people heard were the six tires plus the spare tire of the 35-foot trailer popping from the extreme heat. There was also a near-empty propane tank inside that vented gas into a box that was holding it, which also burst into flames.
The trailer hadn’t been used in several months by the owners who live in a house on the three-quarter-acre property where it was parked. No gas or power was hooked up, nor was there any backyard burning, making the incident “somewhat suspicious,” said Sorensen.
“We can’t find any accidental reason.”
The slushy and windy conditions that knocked out power to half of Sooke that night also sent embers blowing everywhere — the fire spread into the trees and got part of the greenhouse in a neighbour’s yard. Thick smoke billowed in all directions.
“One guy in an apartment across the street said it set his smoke alarm off, that’s what woke him up,” he said.
The blaze was extinguished in about 30 minutes by 14 volunteer firefighters who showed up in three pump trucks.
The file has been turned over to the RCMP, said the fire chief.