'Our lives were turned upside down': Southey community supports family after devastating house fire

Elaine Gerock didn’t notice the smoke right away. 

She was clearing dishes after supper in her home in the small town of Southey, just north of Regina, on the evening of Nov. 8.

Her husband, Ron, was watching the Saskatchewan Roughriders game, while her daughter, Lea, was colouring at the kitchen table.

Suddenly, an alarm shrieked through the house. Elaine went downstairs to find her furnace in flames.

"I ran upstairs and just yelled at them that we've got to go," she said. 

Moments later, she was standing in her front yard in the November cold, watching thick, black smoke pour from the windows of the home where she’d raised her family for 27 years — a home she knew she was losing.

"You can see the flames coming up the front window, the ceiling started to fall in, so then you just kind of knew it was gone, and there was really just nothing to do but watch it burn," she said.

Elaine says it took a few minutes to get Ron and Lea out safely and call 911. Fire crews arrived shortly after the call.

After dropping her family off at a neighbour’s house, she went back into the house, looking for her 10-year-old cat, Asher.

"The whole main floor was filled with smoke. It was, like, black. It was like night in there," she said.

Elaine left shortly after, unable to find Asher. She says firefighters told her they heard a cry from the basement.

"I don’t think she made it out," Elaine said.

By the time firefighters could access the basement, the main floor had largely collapsed, Elaine said. Crews fought the fire until around 3 a.m.

The family lost nearly everything.