West Richland man badly burned in RV fire. He’s headed to a Seattle hospital
A West Richland man in his 60s was sent to a burn unit in Seattle with severe injuries from a two-alarm fire Thursday.
Passersby spotted the smoke and flames at a mobile home park behind Ty’s Bar and Grill on the 3800 block of West Van Giesen Street just after 12:30 p.m.
Firefighters found two RVs already on fire and the man with bad burns, said Benton County Fire District 4 Chief Bill Whelan.
The man was taken to Kadlec Regional Medical Center and later flown to Harborview Medical Center in Seattle.
Before fire crews arrived, some good Samaritans also helped a woman safely out of her house near the RVs.
The RV fires spread to a pump house and then to the woman’s house in the center of the mobile home park.
Several other people were told to evacuate from the area while firefighters worked to keep the fire from spreading farther.
Benton County Fire District 4 firefighters were joined by crews from Benton County fire districts 1 and 2, Franklin County District 3, the Richland and Hanford fire departments. West Richland police and the Benton REA also helped at the scene.
The fire took two to three hours to get under control.
It destroyed both RVs, where people had been living, and the pump house. And the house has significant damage, Whelan said. Three families were displace, he said.
The cause of the fire is still under investigation.
While there were reports of an explosion before the start of the blaze, Whelan said he couldn’t confirm that.
There were several small explosions during the fire, which could have been caused by windows breaking in the heat, propane canisters or some other combustibles, he said.
Firefighters blocked off Van Giesen Street for a couple hours.
This story was originally published November 14, 2019 at 1:04 PM.