Fire ravages Innisfail westside home

INNISFAIL – Firefighters are still trying to determine the cause of a devastating westside house fire on Tuesday evening (Aug. 15)  that left a local couple and their cat homeless.

“Not at this point in time. The fire seemed to have started in the southwest corner. That was where it was initially involved when we arrived,” said Innisfail Fire Department Chief Gary Leith.

He said a call came in at about 7:15 p.m. that smoke was coming from a house across the ball diamonds on 52nd Avenue.

“Obviously, as we were leaving we could see smoke in the vicinity of the property,” said Leith, whose firefighters were then able to pinpoint the blaze to a home at 5230 – 41st St. Cres.

Darrell Wall, a resident down the street at 5240 – 41st St. Cres., was one resident in the area who alerted the Innisfail Fire Department.

“I was hanging my lights up here, and I looked over and saw smoke, and I then called 911,” said Wall. “The neighbour’s house was smoking. Buddy come running out of the house and said, ‘call 911’, and was looking for his cat.

“The first thing I was thinking was that everybody was OK in the house,” he added. “When the guy came running out the first thing I thought was whether someone else was in there but it was just animals, so we got them out.”

Leith said when firefighters arrived the house at 5230 – 41st St. Cres. was “fully involved”, including its roof.

“The property to the south side of it was starting to become involved as well,” said Leith. “We managed to control the spread of fire and limit it to exterior damage, and we had exposure issues to the property to the north and we were able to completely control that.”

Leith said Innisfail firefighters were also able to get support from the Penhold Fire Department to provide elevated assistance with a ladder fire truck to get to roof hot spots of the house fire.

“All the people managed to evacuate the property prior to us getting here,” said Leith, adding assistant fire chief Mike Thomson was later able to rescue a pet cat. “The cat seems to be unharmed at this point. We located it in the basement.”

As for the condition of the house at 5230 – 41st St. Cres., Leith said the main floor sustained about “80 to 90 per cent serious damage” from the blaze.

“We contained it to the one structure, which is based upon our speed of response,” said Leith, whose firefighters had the blaze contained within an hour of their arrival. “We were probably on scene within four minutes.”