P.E.I. fire marshal issues safety warning regarding air exchangers

The P.E.I. fire marshal’s office is issuing a safety warning regarding air exchangers after a family escaped from a fire in their home in western P.E.I. Sunday.

The Tignish Fire Department was called to the fire at the family home on the Hogan Road in Christopher Cross early Sunday morning.

The five inhabitants – a mother and father, their two children and a visiting child – escaped the home with only the clothes they were wearing, Tignish fire chief Harley Perry reported Monday.

The home sustained severe fire damage. The origin of the fire was in the mechanical room and the cause of the fire has been attributed to a malfunction and subsequent fire in and around the home’s air exchange unit, according to a statement from the fire marshal’s office Tuesday.

This has sparked the fire marshal to issue a safety message to the public.

“At this point, we cannot determine the brand nor model of the air exchange unit in question,” the fire marshal’s office said in a statement Tuesday.

Health Canada issued recall alerts of certain types of air exchange units in the fall of 2014. If Islanders are concerned about their air exchange unit, they can visit http://www.healthycanadians.gc.ca/ and navigate to ‘search recalls and safety alerts’ to find out if there has been an alert on their model of air exchanger.