RV Fire Causes Chaos On Jarvis At Gardiner
Posted May 28, 2008 12:00 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
There were two heroes on a busy highway Wednesday morning: an RV driver and a passing motorist.
Tom Shepherd was hauling his trailer along the Gardiner when he noticed furious honking from another car.
“Someone pulled up beside me, and said that I was on fire,” Shepherd reports. On his way from a music video shoot at Dundas and the 427 to storage on Eastern Avenue, he pulled off the road as soon as he could.
“I got out of the truck to see what was behind me, and I saw flames on the passenger side, and by the time I ran around, they were a little out of control for me to do anything about it myself.”
That’s when his quick thinking led him to a risky decision.
“I thought to take the propane cylinders out of truck and unhook my truck from it so there wasn’t any fuel or anything around the flames,” he says.
“It’s not a good idea to have that around the fire, obviously, and like I say, the fuel in the truck would be more of an accelerant, and I wanted everything to get away,” he reasoned.
Toronto Police and Toronto Fire quickly arrived. Andy Jenkins, one of the first firefighters on the scene, said the cause has not yet been determined. He can rule out propane, though, thanks to Shepherd.
“The propane tank was removed by the driver at the start of the incident,” he confirms.
Shepherd says he wasn’t as calm as he appeared.
“There was a moment where I was wondering if I should really be doing that…you release a propane tank, and there’s sometimes a spurt that comes out, and that thought crossed my mind.”
But the greater fear won out: “I didn’t want it to explode or anything like that.”
“The tires were exploding which was startling,” he added.
The off-ramp to Jarvis from the eastbound Gardiner expressway was backed up as officials worked to clear the wreck. It is now open.
As for the charred RV? It’s unlikely it will be used as a star’s trailer anytime soon.
No one was hurt.
