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Fire destroys home

Despite four hours of firefighting effort, a home in Athabasca County on Highway 663 is unsalvageable after a Jan. 24 fire. Nobody was in the house at the time of the fire, according to Athabasca County regional fire co-ordinator Steve Hamilton.
Firefighters spray water inside the smoking home on Highway 663 west of Colinton Jan. 24. RCMP and EMS also responded to the scene.
Firefighters spray water inside the smoking home on Highway 663 west of Colinton Jan. 24. RCMP and EMS also responded to the scene.

Despite four hours of firefighting effort, a home in Athabasca County on Highway 663 is unsalvageable after a Jan. 24 fire.

Nobody was in the house at the time of the fire, according to Athabasca County regional fire co-ordinator Steve Hamilton. It was on Highway 663, approximately five kilometres west of Highway 2.

He said firefighters were dispatched at about 4:25 p.m. after a call from a passerby came in. Crews from Colinton and Athabasca fire departments arrived on scene shortly after 4:35 p.m. to find “the house was fully involved in flames.”

“It’s still standing. The guys did a really good job putting out the fire, but there’s basically nothing salvageable,” he said.

As of Jan. 26, Hamilton said no cause has been determined yet, and fresh snowfall was creating difficulty in investigating.

Hamilton said efforts to extinguish the fire were hampered by renovations that had changed the normal construction of the home.

“It was an older mobile home with a metal roof, and at some point there was an upgrade added in that they framed on top of the old roof and put a wooden roof with shingles,” he said. “What that did was it created a void space underneath the old roof that made it hard for us to get at.”

Hamilton added firefighters used a chainsaw to access the void space to put the last bit of fire out.

Along with both fire departments, RCMP members, emergency medical services and utility company workers also responded.

“As always, the firefighters did a heck of a job,” he said. “They were freezing, it was a lot of water, and they just did the job, both Athabasca and Colinton.”




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