No one believed injured after fire destroys home in Southwest Middlesex

No one was injured when fire destroyed a home in Southwest Middlesex Sunday night.

All that was left standing at the home on Coltsfoot Drive in Newbury Monday morning were the remains of a frame at the front of where a house used to be.

Small hot-spots could be seen, and heavy smoke continued to blow across the roadway.

Neighbour Vance Blackmore, a former mayor of the municipality, smelled smoke a few minutes after 11 p.m. Sunday. As soon as he saw where it was coming from he called it in.

“The whole building was completely engulfed,” said Blackmore. “Flames were probably like 30 feet up in the air and there were a few little explosions going on couple times. Maybe propane tanks or something like that.”

About 25 firefighters in total from stations in Wardsville and Glencoe responded to the blaze. It took about an hour to put down, but fire officials monitored the home through the night for any potential flare-ups.

A fire tore through a home on Coltsfoot Drive on Sunday all that was left standing were the remains of a frame in Newbury, Ont. on Monday, Dec. 27, 2021. (Bryan Bicknell/CTV London)

No one was believed to be home at the time of the fire. Fire officials spent Monday looking for the whereabouts of the home’s lone occupant to confirm.

Bill and Lisa Dorosz are the closest neighbours. They were alerted to the fire by the sound of the fire trucks arriving. By then it was too late to save the structure, said Mr. Dorosz.

“Just a great big, big ball of fire. That’s all it was,” he said. “You couldn’t really tell much. The fire department was here trying to put water on it. It was useless because the fire was so far advanced.”

Fire officials say it’s still too dangerous to enter what’s left of the building. They’re expecting it to burn for another day or two. The biggest concern has been the wind according to both fire officials and Blackmore.

“The only concern we had last night was there was a little bit of wind, and with the crops just came off, so there was quite a bit of stuff in the field,” said Blackmore. “But we’ve had enough rain lately, enough moisture that I don’t think anything was going to catch on fire.”

The cause of the fire is undetermined at this point. A fire inspector from Southwest Middlesex, along with the OPP are investigating.

Damage is estimated at $250,000.