Deadly Mobile Home Blaze on Santee Border

Firefighters found the body of a man inside a residential trailer that was destroyed by fire Tuesday at an East County mobile home park.

The blaze erupted shortly before 9 a.m. in the 300 block of East Bradley Avenue, near State Route 67 in an unincorporated area just outside northern El Cajon, said Leonard Villarreal, a spokesman for San Miguel Consolidated Fire Protection District.

"Arriving firefighters found the mobile home fully engulfed in fire," Villarreal said. "They got reports that someone was possibly inside the burning mobile home, but they couldn't go inside (immediately) because of the intensity of the fire."

It took the crews just under five minutes to quell the flames. They then went into the gutted structure and found the man's body. A cat also had died in the blaze, the spokesman said.

Authorities were working to identify the dead man. Neighbors said they believed it was the resident of the trailer, who was in his 70s or 80s, according to Villarreal.

The cause of the fire was under investigation.

-City News Service

Updated March 27 @ 3:30 p.m.