Firefighters talk outside of a house that was the scene of a fire Sunday in the city's northeast. -- NEWS PHOTO MO CRANKER
Members of the Medicine Hat Fire Department were on scene at a Sunday morning fire within five minutes of the 911 call, quickly putting out the blaze and minimizing damage to the basement it started in.
MHFD platoon chief Tom Coffey confirmed Monday that smoking materials were the cause of the fire and that it started in, and was contained to the basement of a duplex.
“We believe it started in the basement and it was contained to the front of the basement area,” he said. “We believe smoking materials were involved in starting the fire.
“There was smoke damage on that whole side of the duplex but the fire damage was contained to just the basement area.”
Coffey says there was no injuries to people or pets and that a quick response time from firefighters allowed the team to quickly deal with the fire.
“We got there right away,” he said. “It only took us a few minutes to get there and when we arrived the occupants from the building were actually putting water through the windows to keep it down — that didn’t hurt.
“Our first engine was on scene within five minutes.”
Coffey added that there was no damage to the other half of the duplex.
