An evening fire that started in the kitchen of a house on Peel Street here left three people in hospital and five pets in an animal hospital.
Mount Forest and Arthur firefighters responded to the call at around 6:20pm on May 31 and arrived to find a fully involved structure fire in one of the house’s units, said Wellington North Fire Chief Dave Guilbault. An aerial ladder from Durham was also used.
Two tenants were in the house. One female rescued from the second floor and one male resident from the main floor were sent to the hospital. He was treated for first- and second-degree burns.
A firefighter was also treated for heat exhaustion. All three were released from the hospital.
“Everything was happening at once; as you can appreciate, there’s a woman trapped on the second floor, there’s a guy that got burnt, he’s on the front lawn, plus the fire’s raging out of the apartment windows and door. So we had our hands full,” said Guilbault.
Three of the department’s four pet rescue kits were used on two dogs and three cats that were also rescued from the second floor of the house.
“The dogs were okay, but the three cats had smoke inhalation, and one had minor burns,” said Guilbault.
The kits, which include rescue masks, an oxygen therapy unit, blanket, leash and animal carrier, were donated to Wellington North Fire Service in February.
Guilbault said he’s happy to have them available.
“It’s scary in one sense because we never had them here, and we used all three of them,” he said.
Damage is concentrated in one of the units, said Guilbault, and is estimated at around $250,000. He added the cause was a grease fire that started in the kitchen.
“There was a lot of stuff going on at the same time, but I can’t say enough about the crews that worked,” said Guilbault.
The Office of the Fire Marshal was expected to be on the scene on Friday (June 1).
