House fire leaves five homeless

By Al Beeber on March 30, 2021.

Fire crews work to put out a blaze Sunday afternoon that left five people homeless. Herald photo by Al Beeber

LETHBRIDGE HERALDabeeber@lethbridgeherald.com

In 30 minutes, the lives of a West Lethbridge family were turned upside down Sunday.
Gary Klassen, his wife Love Joy and their two children left their home on Trent Road for a trip to a westside grocery store.
When they got home, Love Joy could hear a smoke alarm going off inside the rental property.
When she opened the door, the family discovered their home was on fire.
Another person who lives with them was in a separate basement suite sleeping and didn’t realize the house was burning.
All five occupants escaped with basically nothing except the clothes on their backs and the Klassen’s family vehicle.
“We saw flames coming from the kitchen,” a distraught Love Joy said Monday morning from the hotel room where the Red Cross has put them up for three days.
With Gary not working due to a COVID-related layoff, Love Joy is the family wage earner, working two jobs at fast-food outlets.
“I’m trying to work two jobs; it’s survival, you know. We live pay cheque to pay cheque.’
The garage was the only part of the house that wasn’t burned, said Love Joy.
The family has no clue what started the fire. They’d cooked and eaten about two hours prior to leaving the house, spending their time watching television before making the trip to the grocery store.
A GoFundMe page has been set up at gofundme.com called “Supporting the Klassens (West Side house fire) organized by Jason and Jase Milne.
As of Monday afternoon, $650 of a $5,000 goal had been reached.
The family is in need of clothing for their children, a five-year-old girl and four-year-old boy and virtually everything else.
Love Joy can be contacted directly at 403-795-4734 if people want to offer their assistance.
Crews were notified about the blaze at 2:30 p.m. Sunday.
Three fire crews responded with 15 members working on the blaze.
Fire Prevention officer Doug Broadhead of the Lethbridge Fire Department told The Herald’s Tim Kalinowski “There is lots of damage. It got into the attic, and destroyed the kitchen and the living room. . .
“We are still interviewing the tenant who was renting the place, and we are asking them some more questions. We have pretty much gone through it to determine where it started, but we need to find out from the owner some more questions and then we will have things nailed down.
“It is not deemed suspicious. It appears accidental at the moment.”
Broadhead added “Ventilation plays a huge factor in how fires spread, and also in investigating it to determine where it started. When you get the wind putting pressure on the side of the house and forcing air through any opening in the house, it acts like a blowtorch and you get some weird (burn) patterns when that happens.”
Initial reports said damage was estimated at $300,000, Broadhead said the captain wrote down $800,000 on his report and “I will go with what he said.”
At one point, the fire was wind-driven.
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