Vacant trailer is destroyed by fire

A vacant trailer in Berkeley Springs was destroyed by fire in the early morning hours of Monday, December 31.

The fire call came in at 1:35 a.m. that morning for 106 Dent Hill Lane, which is off Fairfax Street near Morgan County War Memorial Hospital.

Neighbors saw the fire and called it in, said Captain James Struble of the Berkeley Springs Volunteer Fire Department, who was the officer in charge of the scene.

The fire was very large and was seen by several people, he said. When they arrived at the scene, the trailer was completely engulfed, Struble said.

The trailer was a total loss. Estimated damages were placed at about $50,000. The name of the trailer's owner was not known.

No one was living in the trailer at the time of the fire, Struble said. There were no injuries to firefighters.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation. Because the trailer was completely engulfed when they got there, it was hard to tell where the fire originated, Struble said. The new state fire marshal from Romney was scheduled to investigate the fire scene late last week.

They were originally told that the best access to the fire was from Independence Street and firefighters first went there, Struble said. The rest of the equipment went down Dent Hill Lane and they got the fire from the back, he said.

Units from Berkeley Springs, South Morgan, Great Cacapon and Hancock Volunteer Fire Companies responded to the blaze as well as the Morgan County Rescue Service and Dave Michael of the Morgan County Office of Emergency Services, Struble said.

Everything went really well at the fire scene, he said. They had the blaze under control in about 40 minutes, Struble said. Units were on the scene for around three hours.