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Family escapes blaze in north end townhouse
The Brampton Guardian
Sunday November 1 2009
By Pam Douglas
 
BRAMPTON - Working smoke detectors and generous friends and neighbours— Samual Mgbatogu said both were his family’s “saving grace” when their home was gutted by fire this morning.

Mgbatogu, 44, his wife Val, 30, and their two children, aged 7 and 9, escaped the 7 a.m. blaze unhurt along with Mgbatogu’s sister and brother-in-law. The fire started in the basement, but spread quickly through their Brickyard Way townhouse, causing an estimated $250,000 damage. Mgbatogu doesn’t think there will be much left inside, but for the time being, he doesn’t care.

“Everybody’s OK, thank God,” Mgbatogu said. “We’re thankful we all made it. We all made it out.

“If anybody was trapped in there, there wouldn’t have been any hope. Good that we have working smoke alarms. That’s our saving grace.”

His wife had put a load of laundry in the drier before she left for work around 7 a.m. A Humber College nursing student, she works part-time at Credit Valley Hospital in Mississauga and realized she had forgotten her identification badge when she reached the car.

She went back to get it, but as she approached the house, where the rest of the family was still sleeping, she saw flames coming out of the basement window and the vent at the side of the house.

“By then, the smoke alarm had gone off,” Samual Mgbatogu said.

“As I was rushing downstairs, she (Val) was opening the door,” he said. “I saw a plume of smoke rising from the basement, rushing upstairs. By then my wife had opened up the door and she was shouting, ‘Get out! Get out! The house is on fire!’”

He said the safety training Brampton Fire and Emergency Services does in local schools prepared his two children for the emergency.

“My kids knew exactly what to do,” he said.

They had no time to grab anything, though.

“We all ran out in our bare feet, in our pyjamas... Thank God for wonderful neighbours and friends. They were running around and brought us coats, food, everything. It’s a wonderful feeling to have such help.”

The cause of the fire is under investigation. Officials are looking at the drier and other machines in the basement to see if there was a malfunction.

His children, Kelvin, 7, and Kelly, 9, are still in shock, asking where they are going to live and if they are going to be going to school tomorrow. Still in shock himself, he has no answers for them yet.

“It hasn’t really sunk in yet,” he said.

They will stay the night with friends, but aren’t sure what they will do long-term. The structural damage is covered by the condominium corporation insurance, but they had no content insurance.