Saskatoon’s west side was struck by a devastating scene Friday, after a major fire ripped through the Hampton Village neighbourhood.
The fire started over the lunch hour in the 400 block of Geary Crescent.
Thick black smoke could be seen lifting into the air from kilometres away as nearly three dozen firefighters raced toward the area to battle the flames.
Neighbours described a frantic scene before crews arrived. One resident says he and his neighbours instinctively ran down the street and began banging on doors downwind from the house, trying to warn people, telling them to get out.
“Ten of us on the corner here. We all started banging on the house to make sure everybody was out. And the fire, it just went up and bang,” said area resident Greg Stock.
One resident got a call from her anxious landlord telling her the house next door was on fire.
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The winds quickly pushed the flames down the street.
“And I got here and the cop told me to get behind the line. Now I am just hoping and praying I still have somewhere to sleep tonight,” said Jen Gerbrandt, who lives across the street from where most of the damage occurred.
A woman who lives across the alley from the houses that burned describes the scene as the fire started.
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“Literally, everybody on the street was going back and forth: ‘Are there pets in any of these houses?’ People were just knocking on doors, making sure no one was home. Two neighbours, one on this side and one on the other, were up on their roofs, spraying their garage and ours,” said Tasha Skippen.
Fortunately, their house was spared.
Incredibly, fire crews say, a search of the scene confirmed everyone evacuated safely, many as a precaution, and it doesn’t appear there are any injuries.
Tonight, though, many impacted by the flames are without a place to call home. People in this close-knit neighbourhood are just trying to fathom the scope of the damage.
The destruction is unlike any structure fire Saskatoon has seen in a long time.
Meanwhile, investigators are still trying to figure out how it all started.
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