An elderly man was evacuated from a burning home on Cedar Heights Road in North Bay on Sunday evening.
Officials said the man wasn’t injured in the fire, but two cats were killed.
“We got a fire call after 6:30 in the evening last night to a fully involved structure fire with pets inside and one resident inside,” platoon chief Tom Heppenstall of North Bay and Fire Emergency Services told CTV News on Monday.
The man managed to escape with help from firefighters, but the structure was destroyed.
“No cause yet, although he had just lit his fireplace/wood stove,” Heppenstall said.
“Our fire prevention team just arrived on scene and they’re going to look into that.”
One challenge in battling the blaze was the fact that the nearest fire hydrant was almost a kilometre away.
“After some water shuttling, we were able to use a hydrant,” he said.
“We had a total of 24 firefighters at the scene and cycling through to protect the city at the same time.”
The fire is out and crews expect they will leave the scene by the early afternoon Monday, Heppenstall added.
No word yet on a damage estimate.