The federal government is holding its fifth auction in as many weeks on a large group of travel trailers left in the Pine Belt area following Hurricane Katrina.

The United States General Services Administration has put a single lot of 367 trailers at the Columbia staging area up for bid. The auction ends at 5 p.m. Friday.

The trailers were used as temporary housing in the aftermath of Katrina, which roared through South Mississippi in August 2005.

Federal Emergency Management Agency officials had estimated that heading into the fall, about 30,000 trailers remained at five staging areas.

Over the past month, GSA had sold 1,949 trailers from the staging areas in Lamar and Forrest counties.