SOMBA K'E/YELLOWKNIFE - Flames ripped through a trailer home in the Kam Lake industrial park Monday afternoon, completely gutting the house and leaving a young family of four homeless.

Flames shot nearly 40 feet into the air as a trailer on Cameron Road in the Kam Lake Industrial Park was destroyed early Monday afternoon. - Andrew Livingstone/NNSL photo

Firefighters were called to the scene shortly after 2 p.m. to put out a blaze in a double-wide trailer located at 116 Cameron Road, but the flames quickly raged out of control.

Nobody was injured in the incident.

The blue trailer, sitting on top of a small rock embankment across from Ryfan Electric, was soon engulfed in flames, sending a wave of heat that could be felt at least 90 metres away by some of the 50 or more onlookers.

The flames spread quickly across a large deck attached to the home and into a small white shed about 22 metres from the trailer. With the home completely in flames, fire crews focused on the nearby shed because of its close proximity to another building - a metallic blue garage. At one point, flames were shooting more than 10 metres in the air.

"That was our main concern was saving the garage," Yellowknife Fire Chief Darcy Hernblad said Tuesday. "There was no chance to save the house. We didn't want to be fighting two fires."

An oil tank underneath the deck gave firefighters some problems when the fire, which Hernblad suggested reached temperatures close to 500 C, caused the oil in the tank to boil, releasing vapour into the air.

Hernblad said the fire department had 19 crew members on scene to battle the blaze, which left a mother and father and two children - ages one and three - homeless. Hernblad said the situation could have been much worse had a passerby not alerted a man sleeping inside the burning house.

"It was a passerby who saw a lot of flames on the outside of the building," Hernblad said, adding the fire department is still investigating how the fire started. "He went running up and pounds on the door and wakes him up.

"Smoke detectors work great, but they don't pick up smoke on the outside of the building."

With no fire hydrants at Kam Lake, crews trucked in numerous loads of water to combat the flames, filling up a temporary reservoir to feed water into the fire hoses. The closest hydrant for the two 9,500 litre tankers on scene to fill up was at the corner of Finlayson Drive and Kam Lake Road, several blocks away.

"While one tanker is filling up, the second tanker is unloading into the pool," Hernblad said. "By the time it empties out and goes to refill, the other tanker was back."

An employee with Ryfan Electric said she was in the office across the street when the lights started to flicker.

"I was like, 'what's going on?'" the woman said. "We came outside and the (trailer) was just up in flames."

Another eyewitness said it took about 15 minutes for the fire to spread through the home.

"It went up really quickly," the man said.

Police eventually blocked off all access to the area. Smoke could be seen billowing into the air from Highway 3.

Hernblad said it might be difficult to determine the cause of the fire, which was unknown as of press deadline, because of the extensive damage to the building.

"When they burn right to the ground like this it makes it very, very difficult," he said. "We rely on what people see and try to find some of the indicators on the scene."