An early-morning fire on Feb. 17 gutted the Wilkinson home on Hwy. 522, west of Trout Creek.
TROUT CREEK – There was little firefighters attending a blaze at a home on Hwy. 522 Thursday morning could do to save the building.
“When the firefighters from Station Two arrived the flames were coming out of the roof,” said Municipality of Powassan fire chief Bill Cox. “That’s never a good sign.”
Cox says that he understands a passerby alerted the family that their house was on fire and that there was a brief but unsuccessful attempt to put the fire out before abandoning the effort to save just a few personal items before it was too late.
“Because it’s a wooden structure and it was pretty much already fully involved, there wasn’t much chance for the men to save anything,” said Cox.
The call for assistance went out to the volunteer members at 5:50 a.m. with 13 members of the Trout Creek station responding and another two from Powassan manning a tanker truck.
“There weren’t any issues with having enough water or manpower,” said Cox. “The only trouble we had was with a few frozen nozzles because it was -25º C that morning.”
Despite the strong response Cox says the home of Art and Helene Wilkinson, which was not insured, was gutted by the fire.
“It’s a sad situation, but nobody got hurt and that’s the main thing,” said Cox.
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