In the very early morning hours of Saturday, March 26, Natasha Doesburg and her husband finished watching a movie and were getting ready for bed when they heard some strange noises outside.
“He went out there and he didn’t see anything, but he heard popping noises,” Doesburg said. “He stepped a little farther out on the porch and he saw the whole back side of the house was orange.”
A home three doors down was on fire.
“He was already getting his clothes on,” Doesburg recalled. “He ran out ahead of me and I grabbed a sweater. We ran out of the house.”
A couple passing by in a pickup truck also stopped to help. The man got out and starting banging on the front door of the house, Doesburg said. His wife warned the people in the house next door.
“[My husband] met the guy at the house and the guy was banging on the door and he started banging on the windows just to try to get them out because there was no one awake anywhere,” Doesburg said.
She remembers propane tanks started exploding.
“The other guy actually started kicking the door – the front door – because it was locked,” she said. “He started kicking the door in. My husband went around to all the other windows, banging on them to see if there was anyone in the house… As he was just about to kick it in, he saw them coming down the stairs. He must have woken them up.”
In a news release, RCMP said everyone made it out safely.
Leduc RCMP, the fire department and EMS arrived on scene around 12:30 a.m. after the house had been evacuated.
RCMP said the house was completely full of smoke and fire crews were trying to contain the fire.
“It was just roaring flames in the backyard,” Doesburg said.
She said she’s proud of her husband and just glad everyone was okay.
“If we hadn’t heard the noise and the guy hadn’t been driving by at the same time, then who knows. Their house would have been filled with smoke before anybody would have got to them.”
Asked if she considers her husband a hero, Doesburg smiled. “He’s always my hero,” she said with a laugh. “He’ll help anybody. That’s who he is.”
As of Saturday morning, the cause of the fire was not known.
Fire Services continues to investigate.
Calmar is about 50 kilometres southwest of Edmonton.
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