Over my 14 years of doing journalism and covering various stories of tragedy, I can’t help but think back during Fire Prevention Week on some of those safety stories which still haunt me to this day. I have been on the scene of many incidents over the years. So warning, some of the content I am about to disclose might be a little graphic for some readers, and reader discretion is advised.
There are three house fires which come to mind which had a particular impact on me. The first was intentionally set with tragic consequences, and the second was caused by a moment of kitchen carelessness, which ultimately led to a bad outcome. The third was devastating for other reasons.
I was working for the Medicine Hat News when a call came over the police scanner that there was a multiple house fire ongoing, and firefighters were arriving at the scene. I was the general assignment reporter in those days, and so I was the one dispatched by my editor with a camera to get photos of the scene.
Nothing could have prepared me for the terrible sight I came upon that day. Three houses were burning. The one in the middle one had already collapsed.
Rumours began to circulate among those in the neighbourhood standing around watching the firefighters at work of someone unaccounted for in that middle residence. Thankfully, the other two families on either side were away from home– either working or in school. Those I spoke with in the neighbourhood said they heard a loud explosion and then came outside to find the middle house already fully engulfed.
Firefighters later recovered one body from the middle house. The explosion had been intentionally set by the victim, an out-of-work gasline pipefitter.
In a second instance, I was working for the Lethbridge Herald when a report of an apartment fire in a nearby community came in through social media. We dispatched our photographer to the scene, but I was given the task of writing up the story. Soon reports came in confirming that one elderly individual had died of smoke inhalation when they became trapped in their second storey apartment. The blaze had started in the victim’s kitchen.
And finally, when I covered the Hilda wildfires in 2017 I visited the farm of a friend. This friend was a well-known artist and a classically trained musician with a beautiful piano. She lost all her canvasses and her piano in that terrible blaze, and all that was left was the smouldering foundation of her family home.
Fire is no joke, people. This Fire Prevention Week make an effort to ensure your family is fire safe and fire prepared.
