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Trailer burns down to the ground in remote community of Coal Harbour

The trailer was already fully involved with flames when firefighters arrived on scene
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Facebook video screenshot of the trailer fire in Coal Harbour.

A trailer caught fire in the remote northern Vancouver Island community of Coal Harbour late in the evening on Wednesday, Jan. 22.

"It was a big one," confirmed Port Hardy Fire Rescue chief Brent Borg whose crew responded to a mutual aid call for help. "It was a double-wide trailer with an addition on it, the fire got in-between the roof of the addition and the roof of the trailer, and there were still hot spots going when we left after four hours."

The trailer was already fully involved with flames when firefighters arrived on scene, "and just getting it to go out was the tricky part," added Borg, who noted the trailer burning to the ground was really the only way the fire was going to finally come to an end.

The Gazette reached out to Coal Harbour fire chief Andrew Hory for more information, who noted the trailer "was fully involved when we arrived and while we knocked down the bulk of the fire fairly quickly a few pockets proved very stubborn as we could just not get to them safely."

He noted PHFR was "a great help which we appreciate a great deal, however once it was clear we were not going to be able to put the fire out for some time and that there were no vulnerable exposures PHFR cleared the scene.  We had assistance from Quatsino First Nation and Coal Harbour Aircab, both of whom lent machinery and operators to assist in opening up the structure. It was finally fully extinguished almost 24 hours later Thursday afternoon."



Tyson Whitney

About the Author: Tyson Whitney

I have been working in the community newspaper business for nearly a decade, all of those years with Black Press Media.
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