Gorge Road home destroyed by fire

Seven people have been displaced after a house fire on Gorge Road.

Acting Platoon Chief for Moncton Fire, James Rooney, described the scene to our newsroom when they arrived at around noon on Monday, “The house was fully involved in fire. That means there was fire from front to back, left to right. It had a really good head start on us. Our attack crews attempted to get the interior, to get at the seat of the fire, but were pushed out due to the extensive heat and smoke.”

The home is in the Maple Hills area, which is just outside the city limits, and there are no hydrants.

“So when we work in a non-hydrant district, we need more trucks to haul more water because we need to bring every drop with us,” Rooney explained.

Rooney added that one of the biggest challenges was that the first floor collapsed into the basement, and firefighters were unable to enter the house. “That just makes it very hard to extinguish a fire from the outside.”

It took around two hours to get the fire under control, and heavy equipment was brought in to knock down the remainder of the structure so firefighters could finish extinguishing the building.

The occupants managed to escape uninjured before Moncton Fire arrived.

“We had 17 firefighters on scene from Moncton, and probably another four from Dieppe and another four from Riverview. They were shuttling water and actively helped in fire suppression operations,” Rooney explained.

RCMP and Ambulance New Brunswick were also there to assist.