TEMISCAMING — The mayor of Temiscaming, Yves Ouellet is praising the work of the town's and surrounding volunteer fire departments for their work Sunday at a massive fire that destroyed eight homes in the community of 2,400.
He went to a meeting of the firefighters last night to thank them personally.
"We lost eight houses, but we saved 20," he told BayToday in a telephone interview.
"All those row houses, they're together. We lost two blocks of four, but the firemen were also doing preventive work on the surrounding houses. They did a wonderful job. It was on a Sunday and all our employees involved with duties with the emergency plan, they all showed up and they all did what they had to do. Everyone took care of their responsibility. it was a great job."
Ouellet says donations to help the families have been pouring in.
"The population was invited to come and make donations of clothes and other things and the response has been very, very good. We have a non-profit organization in town called Place au Soleil so we're going to transfer the clothes there and it will be evaluated."
The mayor says he believes all those left homeless now have a place to stray.
"I received a call from an owner of two or three apartments that are available and he is ready to make them available to victims for free. Some people naturally have family in town so they were able to relocate with family fairly fast and the others the Red Cross have taken charge and contracted with some hotels for the first 72 hours, so on that side, things are going very well."
The local Abitibi—Témiscamingue MP Christine Moore told the mayor a special budget will also be used to help victims.
The fire, which started just before noon Sunday could have been tragic he added.
"If it had happened shortly before midnight it could have been a lot worse if people had been asleep in their houses because the fire was really blazing."
The only injuries says Ouellet was somebody twisting an ankle as they fled the fire. and somebody with a minor burn on their arm,
No cause officially announced yet as the fire department is still working with the QPP on the investigation.
