A fire in Cobourg sent one person to hospital and caused extensive damage to the home on Monday, May 24, 2021.
Members of the Cobourg Fire Department responded to the home located at 142 Balls Lane at 12:20 a.m. to reports of a house full of smoke and possibly a couch on fire.
Derrick Stalker lives across from the street from the home and was alerted by the smoke coming in through his open windows.
“I smelled smoke billowing in through my windows so I shut all the windows,” Stalker told Today’s Northumberland.
At first he thought it was someone burning trash.
“I came outside to see where the smoke was coming from. I went around the corner and saw it all billowing out the back window.”
Stalker doesn’t have a phone so he tried to find someone to call the fire department and noticed the tenant walking towards the house along the road.
The two men grabbed a garden hose went through the side gate of the residence when they could see the glow of the fire inside.
Stalker broke the window and using the garden hose to extinguish what was left of the fire.
The tenant did go in and pulled out a scorched propane tank prior to the fire department arriving.
There was major smoke and heat damage throughout the home. Fire damage was confined to mostly the mail floor living room.
It’s possible the fire almost suffocated itself out because of the lack of oxygen to the residence.
The tenant was taken to hospital to be treated for minor burns to his hands and was released a few hours later.
Two investigators with the Ontario Fire Marshal’s arrived to try and determine the cause of the fire.
Damage is estimated at $100,000.
Author: Pete Fisher
Has been a photojournalist for over 30-years and have been honoured to win numerous awards for photography and writing over the years. Best selling author for the book Highway of Heroes - True Patriot Love
