Home a 'total write off' after fire outside Baie Verte

Four people managed to escape their home uninjured and call for help, as a massive fire razed the building just outside Baie Verte overnight.

The fire chief said it was luck the fire didn't spread to the nearby treeline.

Fire crews were called to the scene of the fire on Highway 410 around 9:30 Wednesday night, and by early Thursday morning, the building was gone.

"The building is a total, total write off," said fire Chief Lorne Head.

The structure had collapsed into the basement and is still being monitored by firefighters.

"We've got a lot of debris and stuff down inside that basement that's smouldering and just burning very, very slow," said Head. "It's probably going to cause us some hot spots for the rest of the day."

There are no fire hydrants in the area, according to Head, which presented a "major struggle."

The two trucks that responded had to alternate between battling the blaze and filling up their water supply two kilometres away in Baie Verte.

Head said the department is also down an emergency vehicle used to respond to crashes on the highway, as the 1984 truck started having "major mechanical problems" three weeks ago.

"Now we're down one unit so we had to take all of our Jaws [of Life] equipment, our rescue equipment, and put it on one of our pumpers, which is one of the ones we had to be using last night," Head told CBC Newfoundland Morning.

"That limited our access to the highway for motor vehicle accidents if we had had something major come in last night, which added to the stress from this fire."

Head said it was fortunate there were low winds Wednesday night, which help crews prevent the fire from spreading to the treeline about 25 metres away from the home.

The proximity of the trees to the burning home were a "major concern" throughout the night.

"The grove of trees could have caught fire easily, but we were very fortunate that we never had any, or very little, winds last night, so that was a major plus for us," Head said.

"It's good to know that we didn't have a forest fire there that would have went right down through the valley there, right to Baie Verte."

The building used to be a senior's home, but is now a private residence, Head said, and there is no word yet on the cause of the fire.

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