Aug
11
Arsonist’s chaos: 60 left homeless in Owen Sound
Filed Under FR
OWEN SOUND, Ont. — A suspected firebug is accused of striking fives times in one night, burning dozens out of their Owen Sound, Ont,. homes, and destroying everything Rose Traplin and her family owns. For a second time.
The family moved to the two-storey brick 10-plex — one of the suspect’s alleged targets early Monday morning — in 2013 after their last home burned to the ground.
“This is our second fire that we’ve lost everything,” Traplin said.
As many as 60 people were burned out of their homes in the string of alleged arsons.
Ten people — most of them from Traplin’s townhouse complex — were treated in hospital for smoke inhalation.
Six families weren’t insured.
The United Way of Bruce Grey, the Salvation Army, Red Cross and other agencies are assisting the victims.
A 17-year-old from nearby Chatsworth faces 16 counts of arson endangering life and five counts of arson.
Traplin described a scene of chaos and horror amid the flames.
She awoke to the sound of screaming, looked outside and saw her neighbour’s house on fire.
Traplin started banging on other neighbours’ doors to alert them to the approaching blaze.
With help from a police officer who had arrived on scene, Traplin kicked in a neighbour’s door to get them out.
“I would want them to come to my door and kick my door in if I didn’t answer it and there was a fire somewhere. So I did it for them,” she said.
She watched another neighbour smash through his ground-floor kitchen window and help his wife through to safety.
“The whole entire place was on fire,” Traplin said.
On the other side of the building, she said police were helping people escape over a fence, “catching them on the other side: people, dogs, cats, babies.”
After everyone was out, Todd Boddy went back to rescue his motorcycle. He drove it through a hole in the flames, between the burning building and nearby burning trees.
“I just kind of closed my eyes and went through it.”
He and his wife Norma Johnsgaard lost the only mementos they had of their son, who died at birth about 16 years ago.
“I only had a couple things,” Johnsgaard said, holding a coffee cup in her trembling hand. “I even lost his shoes.
“I have nothing. I own nothing.”
— with files from Scott Dunn
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