Firefighters from Bonnechere Valley and North Algona Wilberforce fire departments responded to a house fire early Tuesday morning in Eganville. Nathan Tubby, 47, escaped the blaze and credits his smoke alarms for saving his life.

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Eganville – A 47-year-old Eganville man knows the importance of having working smoke detectors and believes had it not been for the alarms alerting him to a fire in his Queen Street home early Tuesday morning, he would have died.

Fire broke out in the basement of the pre-1900s three-storey residence, owned by Nathan Tubby and located across the street from Riverside Dental, sometime around 4:30. Mr. Tubby was asleep in his third-floor bedroom and when the alarms awakened him, he ran downstairs but at first he couldn’t locate any fire. However, when he opened the door to the basement he was hit with thick smoke and flames.

“The smoke was so thick it would just choke your lungs out,” he said.

He tried attacking the flames with a fire extinguisher, but his efforts were futile and although he thought about grabbing a second extinguisher, he decided to leave the residence instead.

“I thought about trying to grab the second one and doing something, but when I turned around I couldn’t see which way was which, and it’s not worth it,” he said. “The smoke I saw, I could hardly get down the straight hallway into the kitchen, so trying to get down the stairs from the third storey would have been awful.”

Mr. Tubby said the interconnected alarms were much more expensive to install, adding in this case a $30 detector wouldn’t have helped him much.

On his way out, he grabbed a vase of his late daughter’s and his son’s favourite hoodie that was hanging up. He immediately ran outside, called 911 and then alerted the residents next door of the potential danger.

The fire presented challenges for the Bonnechere Valley (BV) Fire Department because the home had a metal roof and brick exterior, making it difficult to attack the flames.

Chief Darryl Wagner said when the call came in at 4:55 a.m. he immediately drove to the address.

“When I drove past the scene the door was open, the flame was in about four feet and it was going up what we call the Charlie (rear) wall,” he said. “By the time I positioned my vehicle and started walking back, it was already starting to come out the door.”

When the first truck arrived, Chief Wagner grabbed a line and attacked the flames, but the fire was already rolling out onto the porch and was spreading fast.

“We couldn’t get in because of the flames and smoke and because it’s an old home, brick, two and a half storeys with a steel roof, everything was contained,” he said. “So there was no breaching.”

Mr. Tubby had done extensive interior renovations to the home over the years and had divided it into a duplex. He resided in one half of the residence while the rental unit was vacant at the time awaiting new tenants scheduled to move in June 1.

The smoke detectors in the home were all interconnected so although there was no smoke throughout the house, the detector in the basement activated all of the alarms.

“That’s what saved him, absolutely,” Chief Wagner said.

With the BV fire department down to two trucks following the loss of its newest truck in a mishap in late March, Chief Wagner immediately activated mutual aid and the North Algona Wilberforce Township department dispatched firefighters and trucks from their Golden Lake and Rankin stations.

About nine personnel from BV responded to the call and the assistance from NAW was much appreciated, he said.

“They showed up with a lot of water and bodies, which we needed,” he said.

Queen Street (Highway 41) was closed until mid-afternoon. An excavator was brought in about 9:30 to remove the metal roof and knock down the brick walls so firefighters could finish the job of extinguishing hot spots.

Mr. Tubby has owned the residence for about 12 years. This summer he had planned to replace the steel roof and also install siding over the brick exterior. In fact, the materials are on site.

Mr. Tubby escaped from the residence with only the clothing he was wearing along with his wallet and cell phone. Everything else was lost.

He has shared custody of his 10-year-old son, Lincoln. His nine-year-old daughter, Violet, passed away in the residence the day after Christmas in 2019. She was born with serious heart issues and had undergone many surgeries in her brief life.

“I have a lot of memories in that house,” Mr. Tubby said as he watched firefighters do their jobs.

Not His First Bad Experience With Fire

Mr. Tubby had a close brush with death during the Fort MacMurray fires in 2016 when he was working in the area for a pipeline company.

Besides destroying much of that town, the fires were also threatening the nearby smaller community of Anzac where he had several friends living and who had asked for any help they could get.

He was operating one of several company bulldozers, creating fire breaks around the community when the winds shifted, trapping he and others in the path of the fires. Had it not been for the Quebec water bombers passing overhead and dousing the area with fire retardant and creating a trail out to the main highway, he doesn’t think he would have survived that experience.

“I still don’t like fire, or anything to do with fire,” he said.

Mr. Tubby expressed his gratitude to the firefighters, saying they arrived fast and were set up and ready to go.

“They didn’t waste any time,” he said. “These guys were rocking today.”

The home was insured and Mr. Tubby hopes to rebuild on the property as he plans to live there in retirement. He is employed by the Township of Whitewater Region.