A Strathcona County couple escaped a devastating house fire with their dogs and just the clothes on their backs.
Bryan Goring said watching the flames tear through his acreage home was the second-scariest day of his life.
“The most scariest was when the doctors said, ‘you have cancer.'”
Goring was diagnosed with an aggressive form of prostate cancer in June 2012. Since then, he’s done 40 rounds of radiation and 10 chemotherapy treatments.
He is waiting for blood tests and other medical scans to determine if the cancer has spread.
Goring and his common-law wife, Marjorie McLaren, had lived in the home for nearly two decades.
The fire broke out in their two-storey house on Tuesday morning, and there was little time to make it out safely.
McLaren was getting ready for the day when the smoke alarm went off upstairs.
“Bryan just went downstairs and he said, ‘get out, get out, get out!'”
She grabbed a cellphone and their pets. Goring went to the back of the home and saw smoke billowing into the laundry room.
“The door was actually glowing red hot,” Goring said.
Damage to the property is estimated around $700,000. The couple has insurance and are staying with neighbours until they figure out a long-term plan.
“It can be all replaced,” Goring said.
“I just live everyday like it’s my last and enjoy it to the best I can. That’s all I can do.”
The cause of the fire is under investigation.