Fire destroys cabin

A Tuesday night fire gutted a dilapidated cabin on Cedar Bay Road and will likely lead to charges being laid against the property owner.

Shuniah Fire and Emergency Services chief Blair Arthur on Wednesday said the structural fire was caused by a faulty electrical receptacle, and there was little the tenants would have been able to do to prevent it.

Hours later, the smell of smoke still heavy in the lakeside air, the force with which the blaze tore through the seasonal cottage was clearly evident.

A look inside the single-storey building revealed the charred remains of a living room sofa, an empty bottle of water the only signs of life in the room. Two shelves of melted DVDs line the wall, seen through shattered windows whose plastic film covering was curdled in the heat and peeled away.

It wasn’t a pretty sight, Arthur said.

“The interior of the structure was fully involved. The fire was going through the building and on the outside. We arrived on scene and ensured there were no residents inside. Then we did an interior tack on the building.”

One thing they discovered, after ensuring no one had been injured, was a lack of working smoke alarms. Arthur said he expects to levy a $235 fine for the infraction, part of the department’s zero-tolerance policy.

“In Ontario it’s mandatory that all dwellings that have people sleeping in them have a working smoke alarm. At this time charges are pending to the property owner for that,” Arthur said.

He urged all property owners to comply with the law, stating the rapidity of which a fire spreads means seconds count for anyone trying to escape.

It’s not the first time the property owner, who has not been publicly named, has been charged in a fire-related incident.

In January, another cabin on the beach-front property went up in flames, the cause an allegedly improperly installed wood-burning appliance.

Arthur said because of the two fires his department will be making compliance checks in the area for both smoke alarms and wood stoves.