KENORA — The city's fire chief says firefighters have been kept busy, responding to a high volume of unrelated calls for service in the area.
“We've had a number of calls and there's no rhyme or reason that I can put together,” Fire Chief Dave Pratt said in an interview Monday. “I think we've had four structural fires, several campfires that have been left abandoned and then starting to get into the brush.”
Firefighters responded to an overnight fire at an Agur Street home on Monday. While the home was destroyed, the occupants were able to safely escape.
A fire late last week at a home on 18th Avenue North resulted in the deaths of two people. Provincial police said the two people — a 38-year-old and a 36-year-old — were both Kenora residents. The Office of the Fire Marshal is continuing to investigate.
Pratt said the causes and origin of the fires are all different.
“I could suggest one was unattended, cooking. The other one could have been electrical and then the third one could have been careless smoking,” he said.
Pratt said he wants to remind residents of three important points to keep fire safe.
“Working smoke alarms save lives,” he said. “The [fire on Monday morning] is a prime example that if they didn't have a working smoke alarm, it could have been a lot worse.”
The next point he wanted to emphasize was to make sure fires are not left unattended.
“Somebody was using oil in a steel frying pan and left the kitchen for possibly five to 10 minutes and on his arrival back to the kitchen the flames had propagated outside we're into walls,” he said.
Pratt said his final point for fire safety would that people establish be a meeting place outside.
“So if you have to get out of your house by any means, hopefully with two ways out and then [know] where to meet your loved ones so that you know they're out,” he said.
Pratt acknowledged how exhausted his staff is and praised them for their work.
“We've called them out of bed, you know, at 2 a.m. in the morning and, [Sunday] night was 11:30 p.m. we didn't probably leave till 3:30 or 4 a.m.,” he said.
“So these dedicated staff have a family life, have their career jobs and then they come to support us and then our career staff.”
