In October of 2014, on our third night out on the road to “somewhere” (we weren’t sure where we were going to wind up), we stayed at an RV park named Kiva RV Park & Horse Motel. We had agreed to work as a workamper or camp host for at least the next 6 weeks.
We had big plans for the following day, which was not only our first training and work day, but we had to move our 5th Wheel from the back row to the first. Apparently, having a spot on the front row meant something. Maybe it was that we were important, special, or easy to watch. Anyway, we decided that early evening to take Izzy for a walk over to the office and talk to the manager about whatever we were supposed to do the next day.
All of a sudden, one of the campers came barreling through the front door of the office hollering that there was a camper on fire in the back row. Panic hit us. Back row? That was the row our fifth wheel was on. Shirley took off running while Natalie and the manager, Reba headed for a golf cart.
Once we all reached the back row, we could see a burning Class A coach with flames jumping around above the center of its roof. It was our neighbor’s in the next site over. Thank God, it wasn’t our 5th Wheel was one of our first thoughts. The other thought was that our RV was sooooo close… that we only had minutes to try to move it before it caught fire too.
Both of us sprang into action. Shirley gave Izzy to the person next to her, and Natalie flew into our coach to get the slides pulled in. She had to move a bunch of stuff because we weren’t going to move the RV until the next day. Meanwhile, Shirley was desperately working on getting stabilizers up so the coach could be moved without damage. We were very lucky for we hadn’t unhitched the RV, and the truck was ready to pull out of the site as soon as we could get things ready. Within a few minutes, which seemed like hours, Natalie was able to move the RV to a safe place.
Shirley went looking for Izzy and Natalie went to console the poor folks who owned the Class A rig. The fire department showed up quicker than we expected since Kiva is miles from any kind of town. All ‘n all, it was an heart-pounding experience we don’t want to enjoy again, the poor Class A was totaled, and it was a blessing that everyone was safe and sound.