12 mobile homes destroyed by fire at campground east of Ottawa

A fast-spreading fire damaged several trailers at a campground in Clarence Creek, just minutes east of Ottawa. CTV’s Shaun Vardon reports.

A dozen trailers at a campground east of Ottawa were destroyed by fire Tuesday evening.

The fire broke out at Mapleview Campground in Clarence Creek, about 45 kilometres east of downtown Ottawa, at around 5:20 p.m.

Viewer photos and video show heavy smoke and damaged structures at the campsite on Landry Road.

Clarence-Rockland Fire Chief Martin Rousseau told CTV News Ottawa firefighters were initially called for a vehicle fire at the campground, with flames quickly spreading from trailer to trailer.

Campground manager Steve Gagnon told Newstalk 580 CFRA’s Ottawa at Work with Patricia Boal on Wednesday that 12 trailers were destroyed.

“It started at one trailer, in particular, and it just started escalating from there, with the wind, and the propane tanks connected to the tailers started exploding and then it was just a chain reaction from trailer to trailer,” Gagnon said.

No one was reported hurt, but Rousseau said some firefighters experienced heat exhaustion while battling the fire on a hot, humid day. All have since recovered well, he said.

Gagnon said one person lost a pet bird in the fire.

“A lot of people were here on the weekend opening their stuff. Most of them left on Monday, thank God,” he said. “I don’t think we were that full. Not even half the people were still here.”

Rachel Deschenes moved to the Mapleview Campground for the summer last weekend. She went home on Tuesday night and was waiting for the owners to inform her about a return.

“My neighbour came screaming Rachel, Rachel — there’s a fire, there’s a fire,” Deschenes said. “Propane tanks, they explode. It’s very scary.”

Rousseau said firefighters from Ottawa Fire Services and The Nation Fire Department assisted with the response.

The campground is now closed, Gagnon said.

“We have no power, no nothing here. It burnt pretty much all hydro lines in here, so we had to close up for the season, so far,” he said. “I’m waiting on the fire department to give us the okay. We do have to get hydro back up here, we’ve got to make sure our water didn’t get any contamination in our well systems. So, we got to get all of that inspected before we can actually open up.”

Crews were on scene late into the night to deal with the fire.

An investigation into the origin of the blaze is ongoing.

In addition to the trailers, Rousseau said several other structures, such as sheds and gazebos, were also damaged by the flames.

With files from CTV News Ottawa’s Shaun Vardon