Four escape fire on Grove Street

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This article was published 04/01/2013 (4877 days ago), so information in it may no longer be current.

A woman says she and three others escaped from a burning home in Point Douglas with just the clothes on their backs today at about 7 a.m.

Gertie Lamoureux told the Free Press flames were shooting from the floor of her grandson’s bedroom inside the two-storey home on Grove Street.

“I heard my grandson scream, ‘My foot, my foot’ so I went running,” she said. “You could see flames coming from the floor onto the end of his mattress.”

After trying to put out flames with a bucket of water, Lamoureux, her husband and grandson, 29, ran out of the home.

“The flames were so bad… you couldn’t breathe,” she said, adding she was in her housecoat and grabbed a jacket on the way out.

Fortunately, her van keys were in the jacket pocket. But she’s pretty sure nothing else in the house can be salvaged.

“We have nothing… nothing,” said Lamoureux, who was renting the main floor of the home.

One cat and a dog died in the blaze, and firefighters were still searching for two other cats.

Grove runs off Euclid Avenue.

Winnipeg Fire Paramedic Service District Chief Craig Lessard said the home was “fully involved” when crews arrived.

“Four people self evacuated,” he said, just before 8 a.m. “They are currently being assessed.”

A man who lives in a second-floor suite, had to be treated in an ambulance for smoke inhalation.

Two other dogs and five puppies were rescued by firefighters.

jason.bell@freepress.mb.ca