A young mother who fled the Fort McMurray wildfire just over a month ago was again forced from her home by fire on Monday morning.
Emergency crews were called just before 4 a.m. to The Bays at Summerside, a carriage home complex at 1179 Summerside Drive in the south Edmonton neighbourhood.
The building contains eight units, and 17 people were displaced by the fire on the top floor of the two-storey building. Two people were treated for minor burns after having to pass by the fire to get outside.
Watch Below: Video sent to Global News shows the firefighters battling the carriage home blaze.
Ashley Kelly, her 11-month-old son Cole, her mom and younger brother were displaced by the fire. It’s the second time the 22-year-old has fled flames in just over a month.
“We’re all pretty shaken up. Scared. I don’t know how we’re going to be able to sleep again. Just… terrifying experience,” Kelly said.
Kelly, one of tens of thousands forced to flee Fort McMurray on May 3, initially went north and stayed at a Shell oilsands camp. The young mom was flown to Edmonton the next day, where she has been staying with family ever since.
The young mom woke up to her mother screaming about the fire.
“I guess when I heard her scream ‘there’s a fire,’ just pure panic,” she said.
Kelly looked out their balcony and saw flames shooting from a nearby unit. She grabbed her son and the family fled outside.
“Here we go again,” she said. “Just bad luck, I guess.”
She doesn’t think their unit was damaged by the flames, but that’s little consolation. “Everything we have up in Fort McMurray is ruined from smoke damage. And now everything we have left is going to be ruined from smoke damage,” she explained.
The family will be staying with other relatives in the Edmonton area until they figure out what’s next.
Another resident who lives in the building told Global News she woke up to her neighbour pounding on her door, screaming, “Fire!”
Danielle Desjardines said she grabbed her purse and her cat Pepper, and bolted out the door. She doesn’t think her unit was affected, and expects to be let back into her home later in the morning.
Lindsey Tyler, who lives in the complex, said she looked outside and saw a nearby balcony engulfed in flames.
“Just shooting flames out the side, towards my building,” she said.
Tyler started knocking on doors to wake her neighbours.
“Smoke everywhere, water everywhere. There’s people around here in shorts and pyjamas,” Tyler said, wearing pyjama shorts herself.
“These neighbours have been great. People have been asking me, ‘Do you need pants? Do you need a jacket? Do you need some water?’ So everybody’s been so great, coming together to help out these people who will hopefully get back in their homes in a couple of days.”
Edmonton Fire Rescue said a firewall contained the flames to the one unit, however there is siding, smoke and water damage in other units. The exact extent of the damage is not yet known.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
Watch below: Emergency crews were called to a condo fire just before 4 a.m. Monday at The Bays at Summerside, a carriage home complex in south Edmonton.
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