10 teens narrowly escape cabin fire

SUBMITTED PHOTO

Rubble is all that is left from an Albert Beach cottage that burned to the ground last Wednesday.

By Austin Grabish, The Selkirk Record

Ten Winnipeg teenagers are lucky to be alive, and may not have made it out of an early-morning fire if it wasn’t for the quick thinking of one of their peers last Wednesday.

The Grade 12 students were asleep when flames began to rip through the Albert Beach cottage they were staying in.

No one was injured in the fire, but the owner of the cabin on Lakewood Street, says the outcome could have been very different if it weren’t for some quick thinking by one of the students.

Nathalie Kleinschmit said one of the boys staying at the cabin woke up to the sound of glass breaking at around 5:30 a.m., realized there was a fire, and then began waking up the rest of the students.

Kleinschmit wouldn’t give the name of the boy, but called him a “Hero who kind of saved the day,” noting the cabin had no smoke detector installed.

“If that boy hadn’t woken up with the sound of glass all 10 would have died,” Kleinschmit said.

“There’s no doubt about that.”

Kleinschmit said the boy, who is 18, managed to get all of his friends out of the cabin before it went up in flames, but it was a close call, she said.

“The last one who left the cabin turned around and saw the wall fall down with the flames and that’s when the whole thing went up in,” Kleinschmit said.

“It was literally minutes if not seconds.”

There was no official word on the cause of the fire by press time, but Kleinschmit believes it started from a space heater that was plugged in a room the students weren’t in.

“They left it because they thought someone was going to sleep there and in the end they didn’t,” Kleinschmit said.

Kleinschmit also denied claims there was a rowdy party at the cabin, but confirmed the students were playing with firecrackers.

Neighbours told reporters the students were partying well into the middle of the night, and were setting off the firecrackers.

The students were celebrating spring break at the cabin.

“It’s always been a tradition to go out to the lake when the weather is fine and spend the night,” Kleinschmit said.

They’re a very very close group.”

Kleinschmit is now calling on all cabin owners to install smoke detectors.

“Honestly please people put (in) fire detectors.”

“It would have given them the extra 10 minutes.”

 -- First published in the Selkirk Record print edition April 9 2015 p.2