Fire Destroys Travel Trailer

WEEKI WACHEE - Flames climbed three stories high as they devoured a travel trailer parked outside a detached garage on Monday.
Thin smoke was puffing out of the top of the trailer just after noon as Pam McCart pulled into her driveway with groceries from Wal-Mart.
She blew on the horn to get her husband outside, but he was expecting to unload bags, not an inferno.
Dennis McCart hurried down a small hill to the garage and opened the door to the travel trailer. The rush of oxygen was all the fire needed to surge towards his face.
"That was probably not the best thing to do," he said later.
With the flames beginning to crackle and reach for the pine tree high overhead, Dennis McCart moved his pickup out of the way and doused the garage with a water hose.
Meanwhile, his wife was on the phone with a 911 operator when the first explosion rocked the quiet on rural Allen Drive. The boom was loud enough that the operator heard it from 200 feet away, McCart said.
The source of the explosion is unknown, but, by a stroke of luck, the propane tanks that usually sit on the travel trailer had been removed for a paint job.
Fire engines racing down Allen Drive stirred up a plume of dust and pulled to a stop beside the blaze. Firefighters scrambled to work with their hoses and a thick layer of foamy water soon smothered the flames.
The garage was spared, but the same could not be said for the travel trailer. Three-quarters of the walls were in a black heap and little remained of its contents but indiscernible bits of ash.
The retired couple are Missouri natives and bought the trailer brand new in 2002. They used the trailer to tour Florida's state parks and another trip was in the works. That's obviously out of the question now.
Pam McCart saw the bright side for her husband.
"At least he won't have to wax it now."