As flames engulfed the balcony of a fourplex residence on 46 Avenue at about 6 p.m. on April 5, the neighbours sprang into action.
Resident Anton Treis, 30, held the door open while roommate Ramiro Velasquez, 18, and visiting friend Joshua Harkema, 20, raced into the burning building after noticing just two of the next-door family's three boys outside.
“I saw two out here but I knew there was one more,” Velasquez said, while watching firefighters put out the blaze. “I couldn't breathe as soon I got in there.”
Harkema said the fire began to close in as they grabbed the family's two dogs.
“It was like when you put your hand against a hot oven,” he said. “The dogs were barking. There was a big crash from the windows smashing out. It was hot.”
The third boy was nowhere to be seen and Velasquez knew it was time for them to go.
“It just got so orange in there and we were like, ‘OK we've gotta get out. We've gotta get out,'” he said.
Luckily the parents had their third child with them in Red Deer.
Bertha Hunt, 58, had just come back from her grandfather Ken Dulaney's funeral when she saw a big puff of black smoke go up.
“On the way down we were phoning the fire department while we were running,” she said. “We just started banging on doors.”
Pam Clark, 28, who was with her, had alerted Harkema, Velasquez and Treis about the fire in their fourplex.
Tiffany Zatorski, 24, who had been driving her blue Pontiac Sunfire straight from the same funeral, found the two children outside in the cold.
“One had no shoes and no coat. The other had shoes but no coat,” she said. “We offered to put them into the vehicle so they could stay warm until they got things figured out.”
John Syroid, Innisfail's fire chief, said the main floor sustained extensive damage, though the overall structure was mostly OK.
“We responded immediately,” he said. “We used an interior attack. What that means is you go inside to push the fire away.”
Firefighters put the flames out within minutes and worked to open up the roof.
No one was hurt in the blaze.
