The Olds Fire Department responded to a residential structure fire prior to 6am on Tuesday, October 14th.
According to Fire Chief Justin Andrew, when they arrived they found a detached mobile home in the Silver Lynx Community with full fire involvement in the back compartment or the bedroom area of the unit. The occupant was able to escape through early activation of a smoke alarm.
He points out that the big thing they cannot emphasize enough – especially with last week being Fire Prevention Week – is that smoke alarms save lives. Andrew says “in this case, undoubtedly, a working smoke alarm did save a life. Again, we had crews out in the community last week reminding people to test their smoke alarms, change the batteries. We were even providing opportunities to give smoke alarms to people that didn’t have them, because these small devices can literally make the difference between life and death in an emergency.”
Andrew highlights that their preliminary investigation has revealed that the cause of the fire is “not suspicious in nature.” He says “our investigators were looking at the cause this afternoon and in a preliminary manner we have determined that the area of origin is the rear area of the trailer. Investigators are looking at an area beneath the floor as an area of particular interest and so they are going to take a lot of time to look at the facts and see what the cause actually is.”
He adds, the fire damage in the trailer was extensive and with what the Olds Fire Department witnessed they would consider the structure “a total loss.”
One minor injury to a firefighter occurred during the incident, but Andrew says it did not require transport to the hospital.
An adjacent trailer in close proximity sustained superficial siding and soffit damage that Andrew expects to be in the range of $5,000 to $10,000.
