A house went up in flames Sunday afternoon south of St. Malo.

Yvan Catellier is Deputy Chief for the St. Malo Fire Department. He says the St. Malo and St. Pierre fire departments were just wrapping up a training exercise west of Dufrost when they got the call.

"The call came in shortly after 1 pm to a fully involved structure fire," explains Catellier. 

He notes crews made good time in getting to the call and arrived on scene to find the back of the house burning and flames shooting through the attic and roof. Once they were able to establish a proper water source, they tackled the fire. 

"The building is a total loss," says Catellier. "There's not much left of the roof there."

According to RCMP, nobody was injured and there were no pets in the home at the time of the fire. Catellier says the residents were outside the building when crews arrived.

Catellier describes the house as a smaller home. He notes the single-storey building was probably less than 1,000 square feet in size, with a crawl space and front porch. Catellier says it was an off-grid home. He adds there were a couple of other smaller buildings on site, but none of those were in imminent danger. 

Catellier does not have a damage estimate but says most of the home's contents were probably lost in the fire. 

The cause of the fire remains under investigation.

Catellier says the two departments combined to have four trucks on site and about 20 firefighters.

Crews were on scene for about three hours. 

 

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