RIALTO: Woman hurt in collision with fire truck

A woman was seriously hurt and trapped in her car this morning after she collided with a fire engine parked at the scene of an earlier freeway accident in Rialto, fire officials say.

The wreck was reported at 2:17 a.m. along the eastbound lanes of Interstate 10 at Riverside Avenue.

“Firefighters were returning to their unit when a female driver in her early 30s struck the right rear of the fire engine with her Huyundai Accent, lodging the vehicle under the (fire) engine and trapping the driver,” San Bernardino County Fire Department spokeswoman Tracey Martinez said in a written statement.

“Had the fire engine not been parked where it was, the Hyundai would have plowed into the two vehicles involved in the previous (non-injury) collision,” Martinez said.

The four firefighters were unhurt and used the Jaws of Life to free the woman from the wreckage. She was taken to Arrowhead Regional Medical Center.

California Highway Patrol officers are investigating the cause of both crashes.

This incident marks the second collision in less than a month involving a motorist who struck a fire engine while its crew was at the scene of an earlier freeway collision.

On April 22, a man died when he sped into the rear of a fire engine at the Oak Hills off-ramp along the northbound lanes of Interstate 15 near the top of Cajon Pass. In both cases, the fire engine’s emergency lights were flashing, fire officials say.

 

VICTORVILLE: Man badly burned fighting mobile home blaze

A 54-year-old man suffered major burns yesterday in Victorville while trying to extinguish a two-alarm blaze that ripped through two mobile homes and three vehicles, San Bernardino County Fire Department officials say.

The flames were reported at 4:57 a.m. Sunday at Totem Pole Mobile Home Park, 12751 Mariposa Road.

An 11-year-old boy told investigators he was awakened inside a mobile home by the smell of smoke and saw that the porch was burning, so he awakened two other occupants, fire officials said in a written statement.

“All three escaped without injury,” according to the statement. “However, while trying to contain the fire before firefighters arrived, … a relative of the homeowner sustained major burns and was airlifted to Arrowhead Regional Medical Center in Colton.”

The fire appears to have started on the porch, fire officials said, though the cause remains under investigation.

When crews arrived, several citizens were fighting the flames. The single-wide mobile home where the fire started was fully engulfed, and flames were spreading toward coaches on both sides. Crews saved one of the nearby homes and kept the other from being totally burned, officials said.

“Residents stated the smoke detectors … were operational but did not know if they activated because they had already evacuated the home prior to the fire reaching the interior,” according to the statement.