‘Total loss’: Home destroyed by fire in Stratford, P.E.I.

A home was destroyed by a fire in Stratford, P.E.I., Friday night.

The Cross Roads Fire Department, which serves several communities in and around the Stratford area, was called to the fire on Harvest Drive shortly before 9 p.m. Crews were on scene until around 4 a.m. Saturday managing hotspots and flare ups.

Chief Greg McCormick said crews were called back to the scene around 6:30 a.m. to deal with another flare up.

“The house is a total loss,” he said.

McCormick said the homeowner and his daughter were home when the fire broke out.

“Fortunately, they were uninjured. They were able to get out of the house,” he told CTV News. “Unfortunately, they’ve lost most of their possessions.”

He said the two were assisted by the Canadian Red Cross following the fire.

No firefighters were injured despite difficult circumstances, including the large size of the fire.

“It’s always challenging to fight a fire. It’s doubly so when it’s a nice summer’s evening in July, you know, it’s a warm evening. It makes it very hard on the crews, very exhausting work and then add trying to get the trucks in and out and having to navigate more cars just makes it even more so,” he said. “That piece really doesn’t have to happen.”

‘Please stay well away’

McCormick said another challenge crews faced were groups of people getting too close to the scene.

“We encountered a lot of onlookers. That area of Stratford is very densely populated. It’s perhaps one of the more densely populated neighborhoods in the town, and there were quite a number of people out on some of the streets,” he said.

“Crews encountered heavy traffic, just people parked on the side of the road.”

He’s now using this as an opportunity to advise people to let firefighters work.

“Please don’t park on the side of the road when the fire trucks are trying to make their way back and forth to the scene. We had to shuttle water into that area for a couple of trucks that couldn’t connect the hydrant because of where they parked. So, it just made that challenging.”

McCormick said there were also reports of a vehicle driving over a fire hose more than once, which can be dangerous if the hose were to burst.

“Please stay well away and don’t drive over fire hoses.”

McCormick said mutual aid was brought in from both the Vernon River and Charlottetown fire departments. They were also assisted by Stratford RCMP and Island EHS.

The investigation into the cause of the fire has been turned over to the P.E.I. Fire Marshals Office.

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