An early-morning fire on Stacey Crescent in Garson has left one family homeless and missing their beloved pets.
Jesse Oshell, deputy fire chief for the City of Greater Sudbury, said Friday that 28 firefighters from five stations responded to the blaze, which started at about 2:30 a.m. on Sept. 5.
“Within 10 minutes, I had 10 firefighters and four apparatuses there, and the fire was already coming through the roof of the garage,” he said. “It was a very good response by our volunteer and full-time firefighters.”
Oshell said the family, who were displaced, owe their lives to the working smoke alarms that were in the home.
“Thankfully, due to working smoke alarms, all occupants were able to exit the home safely,” he noted.
Unfortunately, two pets may have been lost. Their whereabouts were still unknown Friday afternoon.
As of Friday at about noon, the cause was still unknown, but Oshell said he believed it originated in the garage area, which was attached to the home.
“You’ve got all kinds of things in your garage. There’s likely fuel, oils, a vehicle perhaps — there’s lots of high-combustible material. If that’s where the origin of the fire is, you’ve added that layer now, to this incident,” he explained.
“I haven’t seen the full report, but the indications are somewhere in that general location, it appears, based on the information I have now.”
The fire service does not believe the fire was suspicious in nature, but the cause may go undetermined. As Oshell explained, the fire service opted to raze the home as it was getting too dangerous for firefighters, as well as the neighbours.
“It’s difficult to determine the source of the fire, because we did have to bring in heavy equipment to bring down parts of the building because it was becoming very unsafe, and it was in extremely close proximity to its neighbouring homes, and the roadway on Ravina — it was a corner lot — so we did have to ensure there was no collapse and no hazard, so we did have to take down portions,” Oshell said.
Oshell said it was a catastrophic and “total loss,” estimating monetary losses at upwards of $750,000 or more.
“Today’s building materials certainly burn hotter and faster than ever before,” he said. “When a fire happens, and it has the ability and time to really get into that structure, it becomes very difficult to get that fire under control quickly.”
Oshell reiterated that functioning smoke alarms save lives.
“That was absolutely evidenced here,” he said. “Those alarms going off, waking up and alerting the occupants of the home. They did the right thing — they got out.”