The mother, father and one of their two children in a family from Sandnes were killed during the weekend, when the camping van in which they were sleeping at a park along the west coast reportedly exploded, and then caught fire. They left behind one teenaged daughter.
“She’s being looked after by her grandparents and an aunt,” a local official told newspaper Stavanger Aftenblad after the fatal fire shocked local residents and not least others spending the unusually warm spring weekend at the campground.
Many were awakened by what they described as an explosion at around 5:30am on Saturday. Emergency crews responded from Rennesøy, Stavanger and Kvernevik, but the camper was already engulfed in flames when they arrived shortly thereafter. The fire wasn’t extinguished until 6:13am, aided by water pumped from the sea.
An investigation was immediately launched into the cause of the fire. Guests and management at the popular campground were in shock.
“Everyone is stunned that something like this could happen,” Åshild Egeli of the group running Sokn Camping told Stavanger Aftenblad. Heat from the fire also damaged other nearby trailers and camping vans but there was little wind, which prevented the fire from spreading. The bodies of all three victims were sent to Bergen for autopsy.
newsinenglish.no staff
