No injuries were reported after a blaze tore through a home in southwest London Thursday causing damage estimated at more than $1 million, London fire officials said.
Fire crews were called to the scene at 4 Aspen Pl. in Lambeth around 10:30 p.m. The cause of the blaze remains under investigation, and the Ontario Fire Marshal has been called to attend the scene.
It’s too early to say whether the fire is being viewed as suspicious, said Wendy Cowdrey, London’s chief fire prevention officer.
Early estimates pegged the damage at around $1.2 million, she said.
One neighbour described hearing “pops and bangs and glass breaking,” from the driveway of his home.
“We started seeing the flames coming out the right side of the house,” said Amit, who lives across the street in the wooded cul-de-sac.
“It completely engulfed the entire house. You could see the embers rising over the trees. There were flames reaching up a number of feet above the house.”
Amna Masood, who lives next door to the damaged home, said she was getting ready to go to bed, when her husband answered an urgent knock at the door.
“I came out as well, because I could hear the panic in her voice,” said Masood.
The neighbour on their front steps was going door-to-door, making sure people in the area knew it may be unsafe to stay in their homes.
“They were quite big flames, going up on the rooftop and then from the rooftop I could see the sparks of the flames going higher than that,” she said.
“My worry was that if the trees catch fire, that will approach other houses in the neighbourhood, so that’s why we stayed outside.”
Masood says the home belongs to a young couple who recently moved in.
The three-storey home had been listed on the market earlier this year for $1,149,000 and was sold in April, according to the real estate brokerage website Zolo.ca.
(Video and top photograph submitted to AM980 by a neighbour who declined to be credited.)