A man is dead and his home destroyed after a fire overnight in Southgate Township.
Neighbours rushed in, but weren't able to save the man after the fire broke out early this morning, west of Shelburne.
“The flames were just horrendous, absolutely horrendous,” says Joan Malott, Southgate resident.
Residents at Maple Grove Village Mobile Park woke up to commotion just before dawn Aug. 21, 2013.
“I woke up to my brother screaming in a bit of a panic,” says Justin Ingram. “I looked out the window and seen a big fire coming from the neighbours place.”
Because these mobile homes are so close together, neighbours could hear that something was wrong and rushed out to see what was going on. The mobile home was engulfed by flames, its lone occupant inside.
“I heard screaming, there was glass breaking,” says Brandon Ingram. “There were sparks flying everywhere, my neighbour's dog was barking. So it was kind of scary and something you don't want to see at 4 a.m. for sure.”
Justin and Brandon are brothers who live just across the street. When they saw the flames they went to wake up their neighbours, and tried to help the trapped man.
“We knew he wasn't able to get out,” Justin says. “We tried to break the window to get him out, but we couldn't do it. The flames were too high.”
Firefighters with the Dundalk department and Grey County Emergency Services responded.
Dundalk Fire Chief John Thompson says the fire was “fully involved” when firefighters arrived. It was, he said, “a blaze about 20 feet in the air.”
Neighbours say the man who died in the fire was in a wheelchair and did not have full use of his legs. They also say his wife was at work at the time. The mobile home was destroyed, the homes on either side damaged. No one else was injured.
“The vinyl siding on my house, the side of my car port, and sunroom are melted and some on my shed but I am so lucky,” says Malott. Her daughter Sharron Goodfellow, a Brampton resident, credits neighbours with alerting her mother to the fire.
She is OK because of “someone else coming and banging on her door,” Goodfellow says. “I want to go and thank them.”
The OPP and the Ontario Fire Marshal's office are continuing their investigation and an autopsy is scheduled for tomorrow.
