Blast Destroys Couple’s Camper

An explosion Saturday morning destroyed a camper, shattered windows and door frames and stranded a couple at home, rather than on the vacation they had planned for weeks.

The explosion, most likely caused by a propane leak in the camper’s refrigerator, according to Los Angeles Fire Department officials, rocked the 10600 block of Dempsey Avenue at 8:15 a.m. No one was injured in the blast.

“I thought it was an earthquake,” said June Morrill, 55, who was asleep in the house when the explosion in her driveway scattered smoking pieces of the couple’s camper around the street.

“In another hour, we’d have been out there in the camper and we’d have been killed,” she said.

Her husband, Bob Morrill, had packed the camper the evening before with two weeks’ worth of vacation supplies and turned on the refrigerator to charge it up, she said.

“We wanted to get it cold so we could store things in it in the morning,” she said.

But a propane leak ignited, shattering two of three front windows on the Morrill home, blowing the front door off its hinges and denting their pickup truck with flying debris.

“They and their neighbors were rocked awake by the very loud explosion,” said Brian Humphrey, Los Angeles Fire Department spokesman. “Little more than the chassis of the camper remained.”

The Morrills, who were planning a two-week fishing trip to the High Sierra, said they will instead spend the holiday weekend cleaning up and dealing with their insurance company.