An infill home being built in Edmonton’s University of Alberta area was deliberately set on fire late Tuesday night, causing hundreds of thousands of dollars in damage to the structure and the neighbouring skinny home.
The two houses were being built on 75 Avenue near 112 Street in the McKernan neighbourhood, where firefighters were called to a blaze just after 10:30 p.m.
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Firefighters arrived three minutes later to find one of the homes on fire with flames shooting through the roof.
Neighbouring homes on either side were evacuated as a precaution, and crews focused on making sure the flames didn’t spread to the occupied houses.
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They got the fire under control about half an hour later, and crews stayed on the scene for a few more hours putting out hotspots and making sure embers didn’t start new fires. The fire was officially put out around 1 a.m.
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Edmonton Fire Rescue Services said the fire was mostly contained to the one building, but there was some damage to the neighbouring infill house.
The damage was estimated to be $200,000 and EFR said it was deliberately set.
No injuries were reported.
This is the second case of arson this week: on Monday, a fire was deliberately set outside Fatima’s Discount Food Store on 66 Street, north of 118 Avenue, in the Montrose neighbourhood.
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