MEXICO — An electrical fire quickly spread through a trailer Thursday night on Young’s Park Road before firefighters extinguished it.
There were no injuries. Owners Larry and Janice Scott will be temporarily staying at the Linnell Motel in Rumford, Mexico fire Chief Gary Wentzell said on scene.
He said the American Red Cross said they would pay for the Scotts to stay for three nights at the motel. The couple lost everything.
The fire started shortly before 7:32 p.m. when Mexico and Rumford firefighters and Med-Care Ambulance were called to the Scott’s trailer at 35 Young’s Park Road, which is off Back Kingdom Road. At least 30 firefighters responded.
It was initially reported as an electrical fire, and then two minutes later, as firefighters were en route, a dispatcher in Paris radioed that it was a fully-involved structure fire.
The first firefighters to arrive said that heavy smoke was coming from the trailer and its occupants had gotten out safely.
“By the time we got here, fire was coming out the windows and the roof,” Wentzell said. “It burned pretty hard from the back to the front, but the living room isn’t bad. That’s the only thing that they can salvage.”
Firefighters attacked the fire from the outside.
“We tried to do an interior attack, but it was just too hot and it was going, so I pulled everybody out,” Wentzell said.
He said the fire started in an electrical panel in a back bedroom closet.
Larry Scott told him that they heard a pop, then a minute later saw smoke, and when they looked in the back bedroom, they could see fire and sparks coming out of the electrical panel. They called 911 and got out, staying with a neighbor while firefighters battled the fire.
Wentzell said the trailer used to be owned by his parents and he had done a lot of work on it for them. He said he believes his parents got it in the mid 1980s.
“I called Dixfield and Peru in for tankers, but by the time they got on scene, we had it knocked down, so we really didn’t need them,” Wentzell said.
Once they had the fire out, firefighters used a thermal imaging camera to root out hot spots, smothering them with foam.
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- Fire gutted Larry and Janice Scott’s trailer Thursday night at 35 Young’s Park Road in Mexico.
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