NYELAND ACRES : Trailer Park Blaze Leaves 12 Homeless

A dozen Nyeland Acres residents were left homeless Monday after an unemployed mechanic working on his van started a fire that destroyed his mobile home and severely damaged his mother’s next door, authorities said.

The fire started at 12:43 p.m. at Sunshine Manor, a row of mobile homes that fronts 2725 E. Ventura Blvd. just north of Oxnard, county fire officials said.

The fire, which caused about $43,000 in damages and consumed the clothing, toys and other possessions of a family of five, was extinguished in about 30 minutes.

Two passing sheriff’s deputies used garden hoses to help keep the fire from spreading beyond the two mobile homes, Fire Department spokeswoman Sandi Wells said.

Raul Salcedo Ruiz, 32, his hands and face smudged from soot and engine grease, said he was trying to start his van after replacing its spark plugs when the engine burst into flames.

Standing just paces from his gutted home, Ruiz recalled how the flames lit the plastic awning that shaded his van and then grew to 30 feet as they consumed the uninsured structure of wood and aluminum.

His wife, Maria, 26, was at the doctor’s office at the time with their three children--David, 7; Esteban, 5, and Stephanie, 10 months.

Ruiz’s mother, Edlimira Salcedo, 57, lived in the heavily damaged mobile home next door with two of his brothers, two nieces, a daughter-in-law and a babysitter, Ruiz said.

The blaze caused minor burns to two firefighters. Fire Capt. Ranger Dorn, 37, whose engine company was the first to arrive, said a buckle on his chin strap grew so hot that it left a nickle-size, second-degree burn on his left cheek.

He was treated at St. John’s Regional Medical Center, as was Engineer Ray Ruiz, who suffered first degree burns, Dorn said.