Young man killed in mobile home fire
SAN JOSE >> A 22-yearold man who was killed Thursday in a two-alarm fire at a trailer park in North San Jose after he reportedly ran inside a burning mobile home looking for his young niece.
The man was identified as Minh Ho, according to multiple media reports. His niece was found safe.
The blaze was reported about 4:45 p.m. Thursday on the 500 block of Hermitage Street in the sprawling Westwinds mobile home park community, San Jose fire Capt. Mitch Matlow said.
“When the first units got on scene, the smoke was so bad that the second engine could not see the first engine on the street,” Matlow said. “Flames were coming out of the building.”
Matlow said firefighters were told one person was inside the doublewide trailer and learned that a young girl was missing. The child turned up safe with family at a different residence, but the body of a man was found inside the home that burned, he said.
“She is uninjured,” Matlow said about the girl.
Councilman Lan Diep, who represents North San Jose, went to the scene after firefighters told him there had been a fatality. Diep said the dead man was the uncle of the girl who was reported missing. They lived at the home with the child’s parents and grandmother.
Diep, who met with the family, said it appears
the uncle ran outside and called for help, then ran back inside the burning home to look for his niece, who was with her father the entire time.
The two-alarm fire was one of two that were reported around the same time Thursday afternoon.
No one was injured in the blaze at the Early Discoveries Child Development Center on the 14000 block of Bercaw Lane in San Jose’s Cambrian Park neighborhood.