Regina duplex fire destroys roof, sends 2 to hospital

Bright, orange flames ate away most of the roof of a duplex in Regina’s north end.

While nobody was home in part of the duplex, two people from the other half were sent to the Pasqua Hospital after breathing in smoke. A cat was rescued from the house on Markwell Drive and Walter Crescent, just off 9th Avenue North.

“You could see the fire burning through the roof, the section was gone and you could see the actual fire sort of moving very, very slowly across the actual shingles,” said Ron Tyrer, who lives a few houses down.

The fire department said the initial call came in around 12:19 p.m. and it took them the better part of 90 minutes to get under control.

Strong wind gusts didn’t help.

“It has a major impact on something like this. The wind will carry the fire through the house very fast and it just feeds it and it just gets burning tremendously fast. It’s hard to get under control,” said Deputy fire Chief David Kinvig.

There’s no word what sparked the fire as the investigation only began Wednesday afternoon.

House fire takes half of this home’s roof at Walter and Markwell (in the north) pic.twitter.com/NX4bQp8Osx

— Kevin Martel (@KevinMartel) May 24, 2017