The McLeese Lake Volunteer Fire Department responded to a call of a house fire early yesterday (August 22) afternoon.
Department member Ian Hicks said when they arrived on the scene around 1 o’clock the fire had completely covered the home.
He said the good thing was that the neighbors had garden hoses out and that the property had green grass all around it, and because green grass doesn’t burn that fast, that’s what sorta slowed the fire down but some damage was done to the neighboring house’s siding.
“We were there until 7 last night holding the perimeter and it was pretty calm at that time. Thankfully a contractor from up at Gibraltar had heard about the commotion, saw the black smoke, and he was finished his job and had four thousand gallons of water in a giant tanker and asked if we wanted the water. So he stuck his hose in the top of the fire truck, we threw out a bunch of lines and proceeded to hose down the structure. That’s a community coming together,” Hicks said.
Earlier this morning the McLeese Lake Fire Department received a call about a small fire on the Transfer Station Road.
Hicks said there were about 500 lightning strikes in a 30-kilometre radius in the area last night, one coming in contact with a tree.
“It swirled down the tree into the roots and started a fire and a good friend of mine was going to the dump to take his garbage looked and saw some smoke, made a couple of texts and we went up there and put it out in five minutes with the fire truck. It was 50 feet off the road.”
Hicks said before they arrived Luke Herret who found the fire shoveled around it with his dad and contained it.