TROUBLE IN TRAILER TOWN

The pall of thick, black smoke had belched from blown-out windows, and
the aging trailer's aluminum roof had sagged from the intense heat.

Residents had come from all corners of the Silver Sage Trailer Park to
witness the destruction of what many professed was a "crack shack."

The fire was of a suspicious nature, according to rural police, and
arson has not been ruled out.

The trailer was a skeletal memory, but the stench of smoke from it
still lingered.

RCMP Const. P.J. Bes said the trailer was problematic for criminal
activity, and that police were familiar with it, having been called
there many times to deal with known drug users squatting in the trailer.

Fear of reprisals for talking about the trailer's occupants kept most
trailer park residents quiet.

A young woman in a sun dress and sandals, eye shadow thickly applied -
almost racoon-like - walked past the burned-out hulk and stopped to
talk.

The oppressive afternoon heat had her fetching water from outdoor taps
for drinking.

She had seen Monday night's fire and had come running with many
others.

"Yeah, we all did. It was engulfed in flames. You could see it
melt."

She was new to the trailer park, but said it didn't take long to
figure out the trailer in question was trouble.

"We weren't sure at first if anyone was inside when it was going on,
so we were concerned, but everyone was happy that this place was gone.

"For the fact of what it was."

If one is to believe the people who live here, it was a trailer
plagued with violence, and visitors by the dozens - all day, every
day. One of the park's managers, Sam Graham, was not shedding any
tears over the gutted trailer.

"There had been some break-ins in the area. It's to be expected, I
suppose. The police had been around a couple times."

While not familiar with the occupants, Graham knew they were bad
news.

As for drugs being dealt out of the trailer, Graham leaned back and
sighed.

"The problem is what you know, and what you can prove," he said. "A
lot of people in the park were talking.

"How do you nicely make a judgment call on someone? 'You're a lowlife
crack head - I don't want you here, I don't want your kind here.'"

"Legally speaking, that is very difficult to achieve.'"

Longtime residents were willing to talk, as long as their names were
not mentioned. They had all had their suspicions about the place and
its occupants.

Fear of reprisals tempered comments.

As one put it: "All of us thought something was going on in there,
drugs or something, there were so many different people running in and
out."

Neighbours conceded the trailer court owner had tried to get the
tenants to leave, "but they wouldn't go."

"We've had problems here ever since they started in," said
one.

Inside a trailer not far from the blackened ruin, the heat is almost
unbearable. The man sitting across the table is not convinced talking
will help the situation.

He finishes smoking his cigarette and mashes it out in an ashtray on
the table.

A native girl smiles out from one of several old posters hanging on
the wall.

"I'd just as well not even talk to you. Someone comes and burns my
place down 'cause I opened my cakehole - that's not nice.

"This ain't the end of them people. Those people didn't go up in smoke
with [the fire], they have moved somewhere else.

"Yeah, there is a lot of fear. Because these people don't just go
away."

Kamloops RCMP say they have received several reports touting a small
red car leaving the scene of the fire just prior to it being called
in, and are asking the public's assistant in help with any
information.