Two dead in mobile home fire near Swift Current
Firefighters discovered two bodies after a structure fire on an acreage just west of Swift Current that destroyed two mobile homes.
The Rural Municipality (R.M.) of Swift Current Fire Department responded to a call of a structure fire shortly before 2 p.m. on Feb. 27.
“There were two trailers kind of side by side on an acreage just west of Swift Current and they were both fully involved,” Fire Chief Louis Cherpin said. “We did our due diligence, worked hard to put the fire out, and after we were able to extinguish the fire and started our preliminary investigation and scene survey, we noticed the first body and then minutes later we found the second body.”
The fire department had no specific information about the presence of anyone inside the mobile homes and therefore only made the discovery after extinguishing the intense fire, which took about four hours.
The lack of water on the site combined with wind and cold temperatures presented a challenge to the firefighters. The City of Swift Current Fire Department shuttled water to the site.
“The City did a tremendous job of bringing us water,” he said.
The R.M. of Swift Current Fire Department received assistance from the RCMP's forensic services and the Saskatchewan Fire Marshal's office at the start of the investigation into the cause of the fire.
“Now we're just trying to piece everything together with the information I have to come up with what really happened and how it started,” Cherpin said a day later.
The identity of the two deceased people still need to be determined and DNA analysis will be done in Regina by the Office of the Chief Coroner.
“We don't really have any identification,” he said. “They were too badly burned. Everybody assumes who it is, but we're not sure. ... The coroner will definitely do their job to make sure the next of kin is notified. At this time it's just speculation. We can guess by who lives there, but we're not in the game of guessing. We need to know for sure.”
Cherpin noted that the intensity of the blaze might make it very difficult to determine the cause of the fire.
“I don't know if we would ever get the cause,” he said. “It was so intense, everything is gone.”
The investigation into the cause of the fire was still ongoing on March 5 and the identification of the deceased by the Chief Coroner's office was still pending.