CORNWALL – Smoking is blamed for a deck fire at a single storey home on Augustus Street Monday afternoon.
Cornwall firefighters were called around 12:30 p.m. to the home at 1037 Augustus – on a small dead-end section of the street, south of Eleventh Street West.
Acting Fire Captain Reg Quenneville tells Cornwall Newswatch a cigarette butt, flicked on the driveway, caught some material in the driveway on fire, which quickly enveloped part of the wooden deck.
“What we had was unsafe use of smoking materials, discarding, so that’s basically what happened. The owner admitted he was throwing his butts out into the driveway and there were some ignition sources that initialized the fire,” Quenneville said.
The debris in the driveway eventually caught the deck on fire, the captain explained. The homeowner had called in the fire in a panic.
Firefighters arrived quickly on scene are were able to contain the flames to the deck, saving the house from most of the damage.
“It came in as a grass fire and…when we got out, we actually noticed it was near the structure so it was a very close call,” he said. “Luckily nobody got hurt.”
Quenneville noted that, even though they have trying for years to educate the public, the building was missing mandatory fire protection.
“This dwelling was missing smoke alarm protection. There are kids that live in this dwelling so we’re going to install some detectors,” he said.
There were no injuries.