Homeless Man Dies in Spring Valley Cargo Trailer Fire

A man was fatally injured in a fire that broke out Wednesday in a big rig trailer used as a billboard at a Spring Valley intersection.

Medics were unable to revive the man found unconscious shortly after noon in the burned-out trailer at Jamacha and Sweetwater Springs boulevards, and he was declared dead at Sharp Grossmont Hospital in La Mesa, Leonard Villarreal of the San Miguel Consolidated Fire Protection District said.

The victim, whose name was unavailable, was believed to be a transient who used the trailer as a makeshift home, he said.

It was unclear how the fire started. Villarreal said it took about 10 minutes to put out, and a a sheriff's deputy who breathed some smoke was taken to a hospital to be checked out.

Sheriff's bomb-arson investigators were assigned to the probe, Villareal said, though there was no indication a crime had been committed. Bomb-arson investigators are typically assigned to cases in which someone dies.

The burned trailer had been parked at the intersection, along with another one, to advertise a construction company, he said.

–City News Service