Early morning fire at Hallandale Beach trailer park rocks U.S.-1 area

Thursday April 9th, 2009

2:15 a.m.

A series of loud explosions rocked the area immediately west of the Gulfstream Park Race Track & Casino and and the under-construction Village at Gulfstream retail complex in Hallandale Beach early this morning.

A series of separate loud explosions sounding like fireworks were heard between 1:15 and 1:30 a.m. Thursday morning, as the result of a fire at a trailer park located at 720 S. Federal Highway, just south of the main Hallandale Beach Post Office, and two blocks south of Hallandale Beach City Hall.

One trailer and an adjacent car were all but destroyed as Hallandale Beach Fire/Rescue dispatched what seemed like at least half of the HB Fire Dept., plus at least one responding Broward Sheriff fire engine, to the area to prevent the fire from quickly spreading to the dozens of adjacent trailers, which are home to many retired Senior Citizens and seasonal French-Canadian residents, all of whom, were quite literally shaken out of their beds.

Photo shot from about 40 yards away before the first HB fire truck arrived.

After the fire had largely been eliminated, the destroyed trailer quickly began

to spew out white smoke insread of black smoke and embers.

Above, additional fire engines and ambulances on U.S.-1 at 2 a.m.

Because I'd taken a lot of photos earlier in the day that I handn't

downloaded yet, the only video I could shoot before my camera

batteries went dead were this one of the Fire/Rescue vehicles on

U.S.-1, and one of the HB ladder truck hose that poured a tremendous

amount of water on the burning trailer.

So guess which video wouldn't download properly here

-the latter, the best one!