Residents Escape Minnesota Mobile Home Blaze

A couple and their child escaped a late-morning fire in a mobile home in Little Canada on Tuesday.

Firefighters were alerted at 11:46 a.m. for a mobile home fire on Big Circle Drive. The dispatcher advised Little Canada Fire Chief Jim Morelan that a caller reported the structure was well-involved. Thick black smoke could also be seen in the vicinity, and he called for mutual aid from Vadnais Heights.

Chief Morlen found heavy fires coming out the windows. "The good thing about that section of the mobile home park is the great distance between the buildings," he said. The exposures were about 15 feet away.

Little Canada Ladder 14's crew stretched a 1 3/4-inch hose to the "B" side to knock the heavy fire condition from the main doorway. The second hose line was deployed to the "D" side to help control the blaze.

The fire was brought under control in about 15 minutes. Firefighters tore away the outside walls to access pockets of fire that burned inside the walls. "We had an older trailer, built in 1974, and a lot of the components are combustible" Morelan said.

Sixteen firefighters operating two engines, one ladder and a rescue responded from Little Canada. The Vadnais Heights Fire Department responded with two engines and one engine from Maplewood was called in for relief.

Chief Morelan said that, as a part of the regional mutual aid policy, the Vadnais Heights Fire Department also kept a crew in their station to respond to other alarms in Little Canada for the duration of the incident.

According to Morelan, the cause of the fire is undetermined. It started near a space heater that was being used in the rear of the structure.

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