A house fire in Fort Qu’Appelle has left three families without a home. On Tuesday at approximately 6 p.m. crews from the Fort Qu’Appelle Fire Department responded to a call about a residential fire on Pasqua Avenue South. “When we arrived there was fire coming from the roof of the house here and it had spread to the wall of the second house,” Fire Chief David Sabirsh told CTV News on Thursday. “We started to extinguish, trying to save the second house first. As you can see it’s still standing, but both houses are heavily damaged.” About 15 members of the volunteer fire crew were able to put out the flames with help from people in the community who used their garden hoses to assist. The fire chief said no one was inside either home and was told no one was hurt. Sabirsh said the community efforts in putting out the fires were very helpful. “We had a report of one young man that actually went into the burning house to make sure that everyone was out, but he was gone before we arrived,” the fire chief added. Jacqui Juba, owner of CJ Design Shop, noticed the smoke coming from the house when she was leaving her business Tuesday evening. When walking towards the home, Juba said it was uplifting to see familiar faces lending a hand to help put the fire out. “It seemed like people were already taking charge of making sure somebody was out of the house and just as the fire was spreading, [they were] making sure that person in the next house wasn’t in there,” Juba said. “I know some people broke the door down to go in and make sure that the owner wasn’t there because his car was there, but he was actually in his store closing up. He was safe so that was good.” The community has launched numerous GoFundMe campaigns to help the affected families get back on their feet. Juba said she is thankful to be part of a community that looks after one another. “I feel very grateful be in this community, knowing that if something was to happen to anyone else, that there’s people here that actually step up and make a difference,” she said. “Now with some GoFundMe pages, we’ll be making a donation to the people as well to help out with some clothing and things like that.” The cause of the fire is currently under investigation.
