Fire claims one life
Shubenacadie home is on Heritage Lane
One person is dead after a house fire in Shubenacadie on Monday morning.
“We can confirm there was one person inside the building,” said Chief Kevin Jodrey of the Shubenacadie Volunteer Fire Department.
By late afternoon, RCMP had corroborated that human remains were located at the scene but neither police nor the fire department would say if the person found inside the home was male or female.
The house is located at 20 Heritage Lane, just north of the Shubenacadie exit from Highway 224 and about 400 metres south of the Shubenacadie Provincial Wildlife Park.
“At this point, we are speaking with family members and neighbours, including the person who called the fire in,” Corp. Rodney Peterson of the Bible Hill detachment said at the property, which overlooks the Shubenacadie River.
Peterson said the RCMP were alerted to the house fire by a call from a neighbour at about 9:45 a.m.
A civilian who was first on scene attempted to enter the home but was pushed back by flames and smoke, police said.
Jodrey said when his crew arrived smoke was showing in the eaves.
“We have since then got the fire under control,” he said in late morning. “We’re still doing overhaul at this moment.”
Smoke was still seeping from an upstairs window as noon approached but Jodrey said the blaze was under control.
Peterson confirmed later that the fire had been extinguished.
Both police and fire officials said it was too early to determine the cause of the fire and Peterson added that it was too early in the investigation to say if the fire was suspicious.
Colchester District RCMP will remain on scene with the Nova Scotia Office of the Fire Marshal while an investigation is conducted. The Medical Examiner Service will conduct an autopsy.
“The investigation could take several hours at this point,” Peterson said.
Peterson could not say where the remains were found in the home.
The property looks like a wellmaintained hobby farm and three horses, shrouded in blankets, roamed next to a two-storey barn or shed, browsing on hay set aside for them.
An elderly neighbour who said he lived on Heritage Lane for nearly 60 years, said the property next door changed hands several times over the past number of years. The Viewpoint Realty website shows it last sold in July 2011.
The neighbour, who wished to remain anonymous, said he thought the owner was a former military man who carefully protected his privacy and the privacy of his property.
Ten fire departments from East Hants, Colchester County and Halifax Regional Municipality were on the scene.
The right rear of the storey-anda-half wooden structure appeared to be badly charred and fire officials confirmed that they had to battle the blaze in that area.
Heritage Lane has only four houses on it and the house where the fire occurred is at the end of a narrow paved roadway.
The property has a gravel driveway that loops around the house and returns to Heritage Lane.
The house has a red metal roof, an in-ground swimming pool in front and the barn at the back of the property, which is listed at 1.2 hectares by Viewpoint.
The latest death increases the number of Nova Scotians who have died in or because of house fires in the past year to at least 15.