Gold River firefighters prevent major blaze

Gold River Fire Deputy Chief Doug Cross was back at the scene Tuesday of Sunday night’s major fire at a local mobile home park.

“I thought oh my goodness is this more than one? Is this more than one trailer?” he said.

That’s what he was thinking as he and other firefighters raced to the scene and saw an orange glow in the sky from a fire engulfing a mobile home.

“Well the adrenaline was shooting I’ll tell you that that’s for sure.” said firefighter David Hardy.

The flames were spreading quickly through one trailer and then to another one behind it. There were several propane tanks in the yard.

One exploded and flew across the street into another yard. The fear was that if it went the other way into a nearby forest it could have started a major forest fire.

“The green space is right here and these transfer all the way through town so my instructions to the crew was you keep it away from the forest,” said Cross. “You do what you have to do, you surround it and you drown it and you keep it away from the forest.”

“We had a major fire here two years ago and we were worried about evacuating the town so it can spread really quick especially in these dry hot conditions fire can spread so quickly.” said Fire Chief Lisa Mellis Jones.

There were only seven firefighters at the scene Sunday night. Only three had been to a major fire before.

Their training and composure are being credited with preventing a forest fire and possibly saving more homes from burning.

“It could have been way worse, the trailer beside it could have gone up in smoke.” said manager of the Gold River Mobile Home Park Melinda Hemsworth.

She says residents in the park did what they could to help using garden hoses.

“Our tenants actually got all their hoses and were running around and making sure the fire didn’t spread.” added Hemsworth.

The residents of both trailers were not home at the time and there were no injuries.