FIRE DESTROYS TRIPUI TRAILER PARK SOUTH OF TOWN

July 25, 2004, Butch Bucciarelli, Recent Tripui Fire Report, Loreto, Mexico:

Just returned from another week in Baja with Captain Baja, sorting out his mess from the fire and towing back one of his boats.

There is nothing left of the Tripui trailer park. You cannot believe what fire does to a fiberglass boat. Nothing left but fiber strands and melted metal where the engine was. The aluminum heads all melted, even the pistons in the iron blocks. The 12" steel channels on trailers were buckled. House trailers just disappeared. The aluminum is on the ground, like melted lead. Only the basic frames and bed springs are recognizable. Pickups, cars and vans are recognizable, and you can tell which tires were steel belted as that's all that remaining of them.

When I saw that windshield in the trucks had melted and run down the sides like lava, I knew the fire was hot, hot, hot. Funny thing is, there are no ashes. There was such a firestorm they all went up in the air. The smoke was seen in Ciudad Constitucion.

But, earth abides. Green fronds are shooting out the tops of all the blackened palm trees, now devoid of the rats that nested in the dried ones.

Johnnie is having his area scraped, and a new 32' trailer, which he bought from a local Mexican, installed. He'll be back in biznz in October.

P. S. The Loreto fire department did arrive. Since there was no water available in the park, they wisely pumped it out of the swimming pool. Unfortunately, they only had 50 feet of hose and the closest trailer was about 100 feet away. They did save the swimming pool, however. Actually, the fire was almost finished by the time they got there. It only took 30 minutes to ravage everything. Only nonflammable materials will be allowed in the rebuild. No palapas!



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