SPRINGVALE, P.E.I. - Firefighters battling a house fire Friday night were able to breathe a sigh of relief when the home’s owner showed up at the scene.
Members of the North River Fire Department were searching the two-storey house when the owner arrived and let them know he was the sole occupant of the home.
Deputy fire chief Dean Smith said firefighters were unaware if someone was in the home until that point.
“It makes it more a high stress situation because we really don’t want to find someone in the house,” he said. “The fire in that house, we weren’t going to find them, we were going to look for a victim.”
Smith said the owner, a man in his 40s, did not expect to come home to his house on fire.
“He was definitely distraught,” he said. “The majority of the flames were knocked down at that time but he wasn’t sure what the cause would be.”
The cause of the fire, which extensively damaged the home, is still under investigation.
The call reporting the fire came in at 10:45 p.m. from a passerby.
Smith said he estimates it took about an hour and a half to extinguish the blaze. Aid was provided by the New Glasgow Fire Department and the Charlottetown Fire Department Station 2.
The main portion of the house, an older two-storey farmhouse, is still standing.
However, a garage and a roof to an addition built on the left side of the house were destroyed.
“The main house had fire damage on the first floor and mostly heavy black smoke on the second floor but it probably can’t be salvaged,” said Smith.
Katherine.hunt@theguardian.pe.ca
