Thirty minutes after Andy McCaffrey left home to see his wife Barbara at Owen Sound hospital, he got a call telling him their house was on fire.
He stood under the shade of a neighbour’s tree across the road from their two-storey brick home as firefighters from the city and Inter Township Fire Department put the fire out, an estimated 30 firefighters in all.
No one was home at the time of the fire.
Firefighters brought pumper trucks and a ladder truck in the steamy heat. An ambulance stood by. Neighbours down the street sat on lawn chairs to watch the spectacle unfold at 848 8thAve. E.
It was 30 degrees in the shade and McCaffrey said he wonders if that played a part in setting his house on fire.
“I haven’t heard officially but my understanding is perhaps started on the back deck,” he said. “I let the dog out today and I went out barefoot and I had to get off the porch because it burned my feet,” he said. That was at 1 p.m.
“I also had a propane fire table on the back deck, so I’m really not sure.” A woman who stood in a yard behind the burnt house said she heard an explosion and McCaffrey suggested that could have been the propane tank.
Homeowner Andy McCaffrey stands across the road from his home at 848 8th Ave. E. in Owen Sound while firefighters finished up at the scene Wednesday, July 8, 2020. (Scott Dunn/The Sun Times/Postmedia Network)
Owen Sound Fire Chief Doug Barfoot, while in command at the fire scene, briefly said no cause had yet been determined. The call came in as a fire on the back deck and by the time firefighters got there it had spread to the garage, he said.
“It went well. We threw everything at it. We called in all our off-duty guys and we called in the Inter Township with mutual aid so just to get as many guys here. This heat, yeah, just knocks everybody down.”
With the heat, firefighters in their bunker gear with air bottles and masks don’t last as long so it was good to have reinforcements, Barfoot said. Environment Canada issued another heat warning today and it’s supposed to stay hot all week.
Owen Sound police attended and McCaffrey spoke with them, but Barfoot said the fire department still controlled the scene and it was too early to determine whether to ask police to investigate anything.
Aluminum siding on the house immediately east of the McCaffrey home was melted by the heat of the fire too.
McCaffrey made his way around to the back of the house, via neighbours’ yards, and looked at the charred remains. His deck is gone and there’s significant damage to the rear side of the home.
“The only killer is we have no house insurance,” he told two ladies who commiserated with him over his loss. “And we were just talking about it. It’s been a few years and we go jeez, you know, we really need to do this. We were just in the process, were gonna call.”
McCaffrey said he left home for the hospital at 2:50 p.m. and at 3:20 p.m. he got a call telling him his house was on fire. He was there to be with his wife, Barbara McCaffrey, who’d rolled her ankle at home the day before.
McCaffrey ran for city council 10 years ago. He lives with his wife and their dog in their home. The dog was with a neighbour during the fire.
Firefighters escaped the heat under this tree across from the road from the fire scene when it was their turn to rest Wednesday, July 8, 2020 in Owen Sound, Ont. (Scott Dunn/The Sun Times/Postmedia Network)
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