Palmer camper fire leaves two men hospitalized

PALMER — A truck bed camper caught fire Sunday in downtown, leaving two men hospitalized with burns.

Palmer Fire Chief John McNutt said the fire was reported sometime in the late afternoon behind one of the residential buildings that face Evergreen Avenue near the Fred Meyer driveway.

“We believe it was from a Coleman gas lantern and a stove,” McNutt said. “They had the gas lantern running and they were trying to light the stove.”

Despite witness reports, McNutt said he wouldn’t go so far as to call the incident an explosion.

“I think what it was was they saw the flames shoot up and people said there was an explosion,” McNutt said. “The trailer walls were still intact.”

Still, the camper was gutted. McNutt said firefighters were able to put the fire out before it spread to the pickup the camper sat on. He said two men were injured in the fire, both of whom were hospitalized.

“There were fairly severe burns for one and the other one wasn’t as bad, is what I was told, but still bad enough to put him into care of the hospital,” the chief said.

Fire departments don’t generally release names of people they treat and often don’t even record them.

The fire took about an hour to put out, McNutt said. Firefighters had to pull things out of the camper and douse them, then overhaul the scene to make sure no fire was hiding from them inside of anything.

They left the husk of the camper where it was.

The fire drew a decent response, he said, between firefighters, medics and police officers. It wasn’t a big fire, but McNutt said he had what he needed.

“You don’t need a lot, but we had a good response so if it was to take off into the vehicle there was adequate personnel on scene,” he said.

Contact Andrew Wellner at andrew.wellner@frontiersman.com or 352-2270.