Multiple departments battled a mobile home fire early Sunday morning in Dupo. Fortunately, no injuries were reported in the blaze.

The Dupo Fire Department was requested to respond to 113 Oak Street shortly before 1:30 a.m., after a resident inside the trailer reported a fire.

Dupo received assistance from the Columbia, Prairie du Pont and Cahokia fire departments at the scene. An estimated 20-25 firefighters responded in all.

A Dupo police officer was first on scene and reported heavy flames on the deck at the rear of trailer and also advised of power lines down.  

Dupo Assistant Fire Chief Monte Miller said crews made a two-pronged attack on the blaze. 

“We hit the fire from the outside first but couldn’t get a good angle due to the power line hazard,” Miller said. “At this point, the fire had extended through the back wall of the trailer into the master bedroom and was well involved. Fire Chief Kurt Johnson instructed us to go through the front door to get to the fire from the inside.”

Firefighters made their way through the trailer to the bedroom door and were able to stop the fire from spreading by pulling a second line for outside suppression and the interior attack, Miller said.

“Fires in trailers are very hard to fight. Due to the build construction and small sizes, the fire spreads rapidly,” Miller said. “Although the back half was well involved, a quick, aggressive hit from multiple angles helped us save about 70 percent of the structure and its contents.”

It is believed the fire started on a deck at the rear of the trailer. A storage shed caught fire first and burned into the trailer. The occupants were sitting in the living room when they noticed the smoke and evacuated. One female and one male resident received American Red Cross assistance and were uninjured, Miller said.

After the fire was extinguished, crews from Dupo and the mutual aid departments opened ceilings and walls to locate any fire extension or smoldering embers.

Although some possessions were lost in the fire, many items can be salvaged despite some smoke and water damage, Miller said, adding that the trailer did have at least one working smoke detector.

Firefighters were also tasked with finding a small dog that was safely located under a dresser just before crews cleared the scene around 3:30 a.m.

“We’d like to thank all of our mutual aid companies for their continued assistance and their commitment to not only protecting their own communities, but making the sacrifice to help us protect ours as well,” Miller said. “A few more minutes in any direction, this could have been a lot worse. The important thing is there was no loss of life and no injuries to the residents or responders. We can always replace things, but we can’t replace people.”