A Horton Township family is mourning the loss of five pets following a house fire on Early Road on Tuesday, Jan. 9.
Horton Fire Chief Allan Cole said the call for help came in around 12:15 p.m. and crews arrived at the single-family, single-storey brick home with an attached garage just after 12:30 p.m.
“When we arrived on scene we found heavy smoke coming from the building, very dark, black smoke. The fire had reached through the roof on the east side of the building, and it was gaining on us rapidly, so we chose to do a defensive attack only,” said Cole.
None of the human residents were home at the time but there were losses, and the home was destroyed.
“It is a total loss for sure. They also lost some pets in the fire, we just couldn’t get to them,” said Cole. “They lost two dogs and three cats.”
The stormy weather conditions played a factor in the incident.
“The wind was coming from the east and it was blowing and it fanned the flames and it made for a very, very difficult attack,” said Cole. “So we had strong winds, we had heavy snowfall, it was a challenging fire to work.”
Fire crews remained on scene until after 9 p.m.
“We worked this one for quite a while. It was a long day,” said Cole.
There were no reported injuries to firefighters, and those on scene included police and Renfrew County Paramedics.
“We had OPP on standby, they closed the road for us to allow us to work. We had ambulance on standby, just in case and it was kind of a refuge to keep warm,” he said.
Eleven Horton Township firefighters and three township trucks were on scene, and one truck was stationed at the water source at the Horton boat launch filling tankers.
The McNab/Braeside Fire Department provided mutual aid, including shuttling water with their tanker for most of the afternoon.
Cole is grateful for the hard work of all involved.
“I’d like to thank the firefighters that worked so hard in such challenging conditions,” said Cole. “They did the best they could with the conditions they had. I’d have liked to have seen a better outcome but things worked against us.”
The full financial damage estimate has not yet been determined.
Cole said he believes the fire may have started in the back corner of the garage.
“That is a guess only because of the amount of damage and we have no idea of the cause. I’m going to have to declare this undetermined because I can’t get enough debris that I can make an assessment of what started it,” he said.
A GoFundMe is raising money for the young couple, who had just purchased the house this past summer. Visit ‘Help Braydon and Carolyn rebuild’ on the GoFundMe website.
(Written by: Sherry Haaima)
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