Okanagan Falls woman thankful for generosity of neighbours in aftermath of Thanksgiving Sunday fire

An Okanagan Falls woman and her sister, who is visiting from out of town, are expressing thanks this Thanksgiving Monday to their neighbours and the local volunteer fire department.

It comes in the wake of a fire that ripped through Barb McOrmond’s mobile home at the Peach Cliff Estates mobile home park in Okanagan Falls early Sunday morning.

While her home is destroyed, her spirits are not.

“Thanksgiving weekend, what do we have to be thankful for? We’re thankful we’re still alive, and we’re here,” she told Global News on Monday.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "Thanksgiving weekend, what do we have to be thankful for? We're thankful we're still alive, and we're here," she told Global News on Monday.

McOrmond, her sister Brenda Viau and their husbands managed to escape unscathed after Viau smelt smoke around 5 a.m. and went to investigate.

“We jumped out of bed, I looked out the living room window and it was just flames,” McOrmond added.

Firefighters with the Okanagan Falls volunteer fire department quickly responded to extinguish the blaze, which broke out on the deck.

Captain Peter Maliepaard said the mobile home sustained a lot of damage and appears to be a write-off.

McOrmond does have fire insurance, which was renewed a few days ago.

Maliepaard said the home’s occupants are lucky to have detected the smoke when they did.

“They could’ve got trapped in there because the fire hadn’t got inside yet, the two access doors were through the deck, if that deck has been a little bit more involved by the time it got inside, they’d have to go out a window,” he said.

The sisters are expressing gratitude to their neighbours who jumped into action.

“They gave us clothes, they gave us blankets, they started cooking us food, they got coffee going for us,” McOrmond said.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "They gave us clothes, they gave us blankets, they started cooking us food, they got coffee going for us," McOrmond said.

A neighbor, who is now housing the family, didn’t let them go without a turkey dinner.

“You know when something devastating like this happens, people are right there, your neighbours are right there, we were really humbled with all the support we got from our neighbours,” McOrmond said.

Fire officials say the cause of the fire may have been electrical in nature, but it’s still under investigation.