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ALTON - Alton Fire Department battled a difficult doublewide trailer fire on Saturday evening in the 300 block of Aladdin and unfortunately, it lost a ladder truck in the process.
Alton Fire Department Chief Jesse Jemison said the ladder truck will “probably be down for a while.”
“We had a guy looking at the ladder truck today,” he said. “The wiring harness in it, repaired once before, burned through the airline and it locked up the brakes. Public Works had to come and to get it moving and Fred’s Towing towed it back to the firehouse. We hope it is repaired soon and we are also hoping eventually for a new one.”
Alton contacted East Alton Fire Department to bring in their ladder truck and Rosewood Heights was activated to watch East Alton’s fire station.
Jemison said the fire caused significant damage to the doublewide trailer on Saturday night.
“It was a very unusual fire,” the chief said. “I don’t know if we ever fought a trailer fire that long. It was the way the trailer was constructed; it had an almost double layer in between the ceiling and how the roof was built. It took a while to get out. It took a good hour and a half to extinguish.”
Thankfully, no one was injured in the fire and the cause of the fire has not yet been determined and remains under investigation.
The chief said the conditions Saturday night were very cold for firefighters and another shift had to be rotated in and the other out because of the temps.
