Police say one male died as a result of a fire Tuesday night on Cedar Woods Drive in South Frontenac Township.
Fire crews found flames shooting through the roof of the home in Verona when they arrived Tuesday. The blaze was contained just before midnight, but firefighters remained on scene until early Wednesday to monitor for hot spots.
“The fire marshal and fire investigators from Kingston and South Frontenac are on scene, as well as crime units from South Frontenac detachment,” OPP Constable Rick Martin said. “They’re conducting an investigation regarding the fire.”
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Neighbours believed an individual was trapped in the home and attempted to enter, but were unsuccessful due to the heat and large amounts of smoke, the OPP say.
Fire had damaged the structure to the point that it was not safe enough to search without dismantling the home piece by piece. The instability of the structure also made it difficult for fire crews to fight the blaze.
“We made a rapid entry and an interior attack on the structure but we ended up having to pull out the crews because of the deteriorating conditions,” said Terry Gervais, South Frontenac Fire and Rescue Acting Chief. “It turned into a defensive fire.”
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The terrain near the home posed significant challenges for firefighters. Gervais described it as “a cottage type of a lane-way” with only one way to and from the property. The lane-way was also only wide enough for one vehicle to pass at a time.
“There are no hydrants in this area we had to do our tanker shuttle program,” Gervais said. “It meant that our tankers could go in one at a time and come back out.”
The Office of the Fire Marshal has been called in to investigate the fire and the OPP Forensic Identification Unit has also arrived at the scene. It is still unclear how the fire started.
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