Elderly man dies in house fire
Smoke was still rising from the house at 184 Mount Scio Rd. in St. John’s Tuesday morning, more than 10 hours after a deadly blaze raged through it.
One person perished in the fire that broke out around midnight Monday.
While the RNC did not release any further details, including the cause of the fire, a neighbour told The Telegram at the scene that an elderly man lived in the house. Police later confirmed there was a fatality.
Fire investigators were busy at the scene Tuesday. One officer was on a ladder chopping through the side of the twostorey white house, which was blackened on both sides and in the areas of the windows.
Shortly afterward, a member of the St. John’s Regional Fire Department arrived at the scene and spoke to officers.
It was quite a different scene when The Telegram arrived there Monday night.
Platoon chief Brian Tucker of the St. John’s Regional Fire Department said when firefighters
arrived shortly after midnight, the two-storey home was already engulfed in smoke and flames.
Firefighters set up attack lines and flames were shooting out of the windows and right side of the structure.
Tucker said there were no fire hydrants in the area, but they were able to hook into a
supply of water at Easter Seals House next door.
A tanker truck from the Paradise station was also brought to the scene as a precaution in case water needed to be shuttled from the closest hydrant.
A neighbour who knew the elderly man who lived in the house stood by as firefighters fought the intense flames.
Once the blaze was mostly extinguished, firefighters searched the home from the outside. Tucker said the inside of the home was too unstable to do an immediate interior search.