Investigators said a fire that caused $300,000 in damage in Edmonton’s Hazeldean neighbourhood late Friday night started on a back deck, but the cause has not been determined.
Neighbours reported hearing a loud explosion in the area of 70 Avenue and 97 Street at around 10:30 p.m.
“I heard a loud bang that shook the house. I live at the end of the block, which is about six or seven houses down and everybody felt the blast. So that got me up,” said Neil Mckill.
“I think one of the pops was probably the barbecue tanks,” said Les Lefebvre, who lives across the street. “One of them might have been the gas service on the house because the second one was definitely a big boom. It was very loud. And after the big boom there was a shooting of flames too.”
Lefebvre said he was sitting in his back yard having a few drinks and a barbecue when he heard somebody yelling, “Get of out the house, get out of the house!”
“We turned around and we could see the pine tree – the tree that was by the house – on fire all the way to the top… I’ve never seen anything like it. It was probably a 40-foot pine tree and it was on fire right to the top.”
Lefebvre called 911 and said fire crews were on scene within minutes. By that time, flames were shooting out of the house.
“It was pretty scary… pretty intense and you could feel the heat coming from it too,” he explained. “I’m thinking, ‘I hope everybody gets out OK.’ The big thing was making sure that everybody got out of the house.”
The area was closed to traffic Friday evening and into Saturday morning.
Charleigh McKay’s parents, siblings and another roommate live in the house. She said she moved out early last year and currently lives at her grandmother’s house just a short distance away.
She said she was outside having a backyard fire on Friday night when her uncle came home and said her dad’s house was up in flames.
“I started to break down crying. Once I calmed down I walked over here with my friend,” she said on Saturday.
“I was very relieved to find out most of my family wasn’t home and they were all OK and they all made it out safe.”
Edmonton Fire Rescue Services said the blaze was threatening the homes on both sides of the house, but that firefighters managed to contain the fire to the one house.
“Crews worked very hard to contain this fire to the house involved. No damage to the other houses,” acting district chief Brian Hermanutz said.
“This is an established neighbourhood. The trees hampered us getting the ladder up, so we had to get the ladder up and stand on the roof of the adjacent house and fight fire from that house.
“The house involved has suffered extensive damage.”
McKay, 14, said her family has lived in the house for about six years.
“I had most of my personal belongings here, all my siblings’ stuff is here, everything my family has had since I was basically born was in this house,” she said. “It’s basically just a shell of a house now. We were told it went around through the basement and the basement caught on fire.
“The whole deck is gone in the back. Where my old room was, all in there is completely just gone.”
The fire was out at 4:25 a.m. Saturday.
No injuries were reported. McKay said the family had six cats, four of which remained unaccounted for on Saturday afternoon.
In total, about 28 firefighters from seven units were called to the blaze.
The damages are estimated at $285,000 to the home and $15,000 to the contents.