Woman Trapped in Trailer Fire Dies

A woman died Sunday when fire raced through the Canyon Country trailer where she had lived for nearly 20 years despite neighbors’ frantic efforts to save her.

The trailer at the Caravilla Mobile Home Park on Soledad Canyon Road was engulfed in flames within minutes after the fire started in a front room at about 3:40 p.m. The victim was trapped in a bedroom, firefighters said.

“When we got there, the trailer was fully involved from one end to the other,” said Los Angeles County Fire Capt. Steve Genovese of Fire Station 107. “And we’re just a couple of blocks away.”

The cause of the fire remained under investigation Sunday. And the county coroner’s office did not formally identify the woman, who was burned beyond recognition.

But Lorrain Neby, the manager of the mobile home park, said the victim was Opal Zion, affectionately called “Momma Jo” by neighbors. She had lived in the trailer with her husband for nearly 20 years, Neby said.

“I don’t know why, we just all called her that,” Neby said. “She was just a nice lady. She was very outgoing.”

Michael Fruehauf, 18, a park resident for nine years, said he was one of two people who tried to save the woman. Fruehauf said he could hear her moaning and pleading for help as he broke part of the bedroom window with his palm. The other resident broke the rest of the window with a rock.

“I put my arm in and it was too hot,” Fruehauf said. “When I took my arm out, it was already turning red.”

The other resident also could not get into the trailer through the window. But the pair could see the flames starting to creep across the ceiling of the bedroom. As the flames and the smoke grew, they stopped hearing the woman. Then, they tried to use a garden hose to douse the fire to no avail, Fruehauf said.

“People just started telling me to get away because it was right near the gas line,” Fruehauf said.

Firefighters also had to save an adjacent trailer that was catching fire, but it sustained only minor damage, Genovese said. Two cars in the carport attached to the woman’s trailer were also destroyed.

Fruehauf said he wished that he could have saved the woman. “It’s kind of hard because at the same time everybody says, ‘You did your best,’ but when you hear a voice in there, it’s different for me. Then again, what if I had gone in there and the smoke was so bad that I couldn’t see the window myself, and then I’d have been trapped too,” he said.