Three adults and one minor in a north Edmonton home were jolted awake by an explosion early Friday.
Edmonton Fire Rescue Services told Global News that at 2:46 a.m., crews were called to a house on 67 Street near 129 Avenue after an explosion at a vacant home in the neighbourhood of Balwin.
Firefighters said the blast was so powerful that it knocked the home entirely off its foundation.
”It woke us up,” Zak Gladue said. He added a thick large smoke plume could be seen from his house about a block away.
“I feared for the worst so I made my way over just to make sure life was preserved and I did end up making entry into the house that exploded, did several call outs to make sure there was nobody’s inside, nobody answered so then I made my way to the neighbour’s house.”
Gladue said it was only a matter of seconds after the family of four left their home that it also caught fire.
Darius Roth, who’s also a nearby neighbour described the fire reaching the tops of the trees in the neighbourhood and added the smell was something he’s never experienced before.
“You could feel the heat from the back alley … big rolling flames and the smell was so chemical. It was disgusting,” Roth said.
“I’ve never witnessed a house burning down that close before so I can’t say what houses normally smell like, but just the way that it was rolling into your nose, you couldn’t get it out, it felt like it was going to get stuck in your nose, and you could just smell it for the next hour or two.”
EFRS district fire chief Brian Hoekstra told Global News explosions like this don’t happen often.
“The house is reported to be vacant, the one that was most damaged,” Hoekstra said.
“The house next door, family living in it, it was affected on the outside and were just making sure (the fire damage) hasn’t extended to the inside.”
No injuries have been reported.
Neighbours in the area remain puzzled as to how the explosion happened in the first place.
“How does this happen? Why does this happen, I guess, is the better question because everyone is kind of in the same situation, we just don’t understand,” Roth added.
“We know there’s problems in this area, but we don’t understand why would someone want to … we feel it’s arson, but we don’t know anything, there’s a lot of thoughts going on, it was three in the morning, right.”
Fire investigators were at the scene Friday morning. There is no word yet on the estimated cost or cause of the damage.
Comments