Man treated at hospital after mobile-home fire

A fire that ignited inside a Vancouver mobile home early Sunday morning sent one man to the hospital and caused about $200,000 worth of property damage.

Firefighters from the Vancouver Fire Department were dispatched at 4:07 a.m. to the Totem Pole Mobile Estates, 3909 East Fourth Plain Blvd. in the Maplewood neighborhood. The first callers to 911 reported smoke billowing from a mobile home, according to emergency radio traffic.

The man living in the home and his brother, who was visiting, were the only two people inside when the fire started, Vancouver Fire Marshal Heidi Scarpelli said. The men were in their late 50s or early 60s, she said.

A neighbor in Totem Pole Mobile Estates noticed the fire soon after it started and pulled one of the brothers outside, Scarpelli said. The other brother also made it out.

When firefighters arrived, they fought the flames from outside the home and had the fire knocked down in about 15 minutes, according to emergency radio traffic. An ambulance took one of the brothers to PeaceHealth Southwest Medical Center, where he was treated for smoke inhalation and released, Scarpelli said.

“We were very, very fortunate,” Scarpelli said. “Firefighters did a great job, and we had a good Samaritan.”

As of Sunday evening, fire investigators had narrowed the cause of the fire down to either a lit cigarette or a space heater — both of which were close to a recliner that caught fire, Scarpelli said. Investigators are working to determine the cause.

The fire caused an estimated $150,000 worth of damage to the mobile home and damaged $50,000 worth of belongings inside the home, Scarpelli said.