Firefighters work to save home in Sudbury's Valley area

Sudbury -

Crews from the City of Greater Sudbury Fire Services were called to a house fire on Velma Street in the Val Therese area of the city Monday morning.

Deputy Fire Chief Jesse Oshell told CTV News the call came in around 9:30 a.m. about smoke billowing from the roof of a single-family home. Oshell said the occupants were not home at the time.

House fire in Greater Sudbury's Valley East neighbourhood. Aug. 30/21 (Jesse Oshell)

"Our fire crews arrived to find not only smoke but flames coming from the occupancy here and so we immediately began our firefighting operations," he said.

Firefighters from eight stations around Greater Sudbury -- five volunteer and three career groups -- are actively working to extinguish the difficult fire.

"At this time the fire is under control," said Oshell around noon on Monday. "We were able to finally get a handle on the fire. We were able to get to the source of the fire. It was very difficult. The residence here is heavily surrounded by trees and thick shrubbery, and a lot of debris in the yard made it very difficult to get access to the home. And the home had a lot of fire load, a lot of content inside, making it very difficult for firefighters to get access."

Due to the obstacles, crews had to fight the blaze from the outside of the building.

"We had crews on the roof and crews at all corners of the building getting water inside," he said.

Oshell confirmed that no one was inside the home when the fire started and crews were able to do an initial search to make sure that the house was completely empty.

However, due to the hot and humid weather conditions, one firefighter did require medical attention from on-scene paramedics.

Crews from eight Greater Sudbury stations were called to a house fire on Velma Street in Val Therese. Aug. 30/21 (Alana Pickrell/CTV Northern Ontario)

"We have had firefighters, who due to heat exhaustion, have come back out. We do have paramedics who always come to our fire scenes in order to ensure that not only our occupants, if there are any, of the home or fire situation are safe, but also to address any firefighters that may need assistance," said Oshell.

"Thankfully just a cause of overheating and our firefighter is still here and still working."

Right now the cause of the blaze is still being determined, however, officials say that it is not being deemed suspicious at this time.

Crews are expected to be on scene for the majority of the day Monday making sure that all hot spots are put out.