An RV blew up in Abbotsford. The reason? Rodents.

Bystanders at Aloha RV park watch Sylvia Gilles's trailer burn after it exploded. Photo by TSBC

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It was a cool, damp and breezy March evening at the Aloha RV Park in Abbotsford. The sun had set, and a waxing gibbous moon peered through the scattered clouds as Sylvia Gillis and her dog, Max, climbed the stairs to her Jayco trailer.

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She had no idea that some of the park’s other occupants — the small, hairy, rodent kind — had inadvertently created a bomb that, 49 minutes after she was seen coming home, would nearly kill her.

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Video from the night showed her RV exploding into a fiery ball of flame and smoke at 7:09 p.m., a buildup of propane that had accumulated inside her home over a period of days finally igniting. A recently released Technical Safety B.C. (TSBC) report on the March 2 incident pointed to rodents chewing on the feed lines as the source of the gas leak.

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Footage from the RV park’s cameras show the explosion. Photo by TSBC /PNG

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Two neighbours, identified as Michael and Shawna in a GoFundMe set up for Gillis, heard the explosion and raced over with a fire extinguisher. Michael spent the canister trying to fight the flames. As they turned to leave, Shawna heard a moaning and found Gillis lying in the wreckage. Michael carried her to safety and the flames soon began eating away at the spot where she was found.

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“I didn’t get a good look at her injuries until the police arrived and shone a flashlight over her body,” Shawna wrote. “Her hands and arms had major peeling. Her face was red. Her hair was singed. She had one giant piece of skin peeling on her ENTIRE abdomen. The backs of her arms were peeling. She had a pillow that was stuck or melted to her right shin. The clothes on her entire backside were gone. Her shirt from the breasts down was gone. Thankfully, the policeman gave me a green plastic blanket that I wrapped around her until the ambulance got there.”

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The 68-year-old Gillis was airlifted to hospital. Max, also burned in the explosion, was hit by a car after being spooked. Both survived with serious injuries. The GoFundMe established to help Gillis states she had just retired after 40 years working at London Drugs.

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“After decades of serving others, she was supposed to be enjoying her well-earned retirement. Instead, in a matter of minutes, she lost everything she owned,” it reads.

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The blast ripped the roof completely off her trailer, and blew out the walls. Flames incinerated much of what was left inside. The TSBC report into the incident placed the blame on rodents that had chewed electrical wiring and the hose inside her RV, causing a slow buildup of propane inside the unit.

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The trailer had been converted to a full-time residence, with the stock set up of two onboard 5.9 kg canisters replaced by piping that led to an external 190 kg cylinder, which was installed and connected by a qualified technician. The damage to the hoses came in an area that was not easily accessible to inspection.

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The aftermath of the explosion and fire. Photo by TSBC /PNG

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Every RV with a propane gas appliance comes with a detector that should have alerted either Gillis or her neighbours to a leak, but it was found in non-functional state after the explosion. The report said witnesses didn’t hear any alerts that indicated a gas leak.

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The only indication that anything was awry was a higher-than-typical gas usage rate, which automatically prompted a tech to come out and refill Gillis’s tank just 11 days after the previous top-off, even though she wasn’t home.

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Gillis continues her recovery, which had necessitated several long-term stays in hospital.

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