Fort Simpson (Apr 29/05) - A small one-bedroom house was gutted by fire on the evening of April 22. The homeowner, Richard Hardisty, and two acquaintances escape unscathed.

Deputy fire chief Roger Pilling said the cause of the blaze remained undetermined as of Monday, but a kitchen fire is suspected as that area was badly scorched. A frying pan containing food was on the stove, he noted.

A Fort Simpson volunteer firefighter hoses down a blaze that caused extensive damage to a residence on the evening of April 22.

Hardisty, a painter and drywall installer, took a look inside his charred residence on Saturday - a house he built himself 20 years ago - but he said nothing could be salvaged, not even his tools.

He said he was watching TV in his bedroom on Friday evening and was just about to fall asleep when his girlfriend poked him in the ribs and warned him that the house was on fire.

"She went up like a tinderbox that place," said Hardisty.

"We're lucky we got out of there. It happened really fast."

He confirmed that someone had been cooking.

He said his sister has offered him a place to stay in the interim. The Liidlii Kue First Nation is helping out by holding a benefit bingo for him on Friday, he noted.

The community's emergency siren began to wail after 9 p.m. on Friday. Seven firefighters happened to be at the fire hall at the time for first aid training.

"The only way we could have been faster is if we were actually sitting in the truck with it running," Pilling said.

Despite the quick response - a couple of minutes - the fire had already taken hold and the interior of the residence couldn't be saved, according to Pilling. The firefighters discovered the front door had been removed, which allowed more oxygen to feed the flames.

A large crowd of onlookers gathered in the nearby Sub-Arctic lounge parking lot as plumes of black and grey smoke stretched into the evening sky.

Hardisty stood on the front step of a neighbour's residence, watching the scene unfold and occasionally shouting an obscenity in frustration. One of his friends sat silently with his head in his hands.

A firefighter asked Hardisty if all of the jerry cans piled by the front entrance were empty. Hardisty replied that they were.

A series of loud popping noises erupted shortly after the firefighters started applying water to the flames and entered the building.

"There's lots of shells in there," Hardisty yelled.

People in the crowd begin stepping back and directing children to move away.

The firefighters, however, didn't run for cover. Pilling said brass shrapnel from the shell casings posed some danger but the volunteers wear protective equipment, he said.

"You can't just run and let (the fire) go until all the shells are gone," he explained. "I didn't consider it an extreme risk."