Man dead after fire races through trailer park home
A Meade Creek man died Friday night when his trailer caught fire sometime around 9:30 p.m. Police believe the fire was caused by a propane heater the owner had lit earlier in the evening.
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A 64-year-old Meade Creek man died Friday night after his trailer burst into flames at about 9:30 p.m.
Jacob Michael Waldner, who would have been 65 this Wednesday, was the lone occupant in the trailer.
“The cause of the fire is under investigation, by the coroner’s service, however, the likely cause was a propane powered parabolic heater that had been lit by the owner earlier in the evening,” said Sgt. Dave Voller of the Lake Cowichan RCMP.
Lake Cowichan fire chief Tom Denninger said it didn’t take them that long to put the fire out once they arrived, but the trailer was fully engulfed by that time.
“The trailer was totalled,” said Denninger. “Usually when they get going there’s not much to them and they burn pretty quickly.”
A second alarm was sent to the Youbou Volunteer Fire Department for one of its tanker trucks, which Denninger said was simply as a back-up in case they needed more water.
After they put the flames out, firefighters went into what was left of the trailer and found Waldner’s body.
A neighbour two doors down from the fire said he had been watching television when he saw a light outside, through the curtains.
“When I went outside I thought at first that it was the trailer next door,” said the man, who asked that his name not be used. “When I took a few more steps, then I saw the trailer with huge flames burning.”
He used his cell phone to call 911.
“I thought that if anyone was in that trailer there wasn’t much hope that he would survive. I thought later whether there was anything more I could have done, but I know there was nothing I could do to help him.”
Voller said the neighbour did the right thing by staying back. “Otherwise, we would have found two bodies in the trailer,” he said.
