A Stittsville family is crediting their eight-year-old son for alerting them to a fire at the home next door, giving them time to escape before the flames spread to their dream home.
"I'm so proud of him," said Whitney Toogood, one day after the fire destroyed the family home in Ottawa's west end.
Ottawa fire says the fire started in the garage at a home on Aridus Crescent at approximately 5:30 a.m. Thursday.
"Due to the heavy winds, the fire spread from the original unit to one of the neighbouring homes," said Ottawa fire in a statement on Thursday.
That neighbouring unit was the home of Whitney and Sean Toogood, who were asleep in the home with their children Mason and 6-year-old Gwen.
In an interview with Newstalk 580 CFRA's Ottawa Now with Kristy Cameron, Sean Toogood said Mason came into their bedroom.
"He came scamping into the bed and woke up my wife….shook her enough to wake me up and I thought I smelled something funny, but I'm like, 'Huh it's OK,'" said Sean Toogood.
"Mason came around the bed and shook me and said, 'Dad, Dad, Dad. I can't get back to sleep and something smells funny.'"
Toogood said he put two and two together; jumped out of bed and ran down the hall.
"I open up the blind and I can see the reflection of the fire in the windows across the street," said Toogood. "I turn around, run back and tell my wife, 'Whitney, there's a fire. I think we need to get out.'"
Toogood says he got dressed and ran outside to check, "and I could see a 10-foot plume of fire coming out of the neighbour's garage."
Within two minutes, the family of four, three cats and two kittens were out the door. The Toogood's say the family home was "untouched" when they left, but the fire quickly spread to their property.
"At the end of the day, my son was awake and he's a hero through all this," said Toogood.
Whitney Toogood told 580 CFRA, "We're so lucky!"
"He gave us enough time to get our pets and get out safely," said Whitney Toogood.
Sean Toogood says the family had just moved into their house six months ago, "It's brand new, this is our dream home."
Cameron asked Toogood if the family had practiced a fire escape plan before Thursday's fire.
"I drive up and down Iber Road and the fire station there has a sign, and it says, 'Plan Your Escape Route.' And I kind of did it in my head; I didn't talk about it with them and maybe I should have," said an emotional Sean Toogood.
"Sean, he may have not talked about it but you got us out. You knew what to do," added Whitney. "I feel really lucky."
The Toogood family stayed with neighbours while firefighters battled the fire.
"I've got to sing the praises to the fireman; they were there before we got out of the house," said Sean Toogood.
"They're banging on the doors, and they made sure everybody was out and they did everything they could. It was windy, it was a big fire and it just blew from one house across to ours. It doesn’t take much."
The family is currently staying at the Brookstreet Hotel provided by the Red Cross.
A GoFundMe page to help the Toogood family rebuild has been launched. As of 7:30 p.m. Friday, $5,200 had been raised for the family.
The GoFundMe page notes Whitney Toogood created 'Toogood's Kitchen', to supply premade meals in the community. The fire destroyed most of her equipment and company assets.
As for Mason, the Toogood family says he was doing well one day after the fire.
"He's with his friends building a snow fort," said Whitney, noting it was a day off for students.
By now it's as predictable as the calls for thoughts and prayers: A mass shooting leaves many dead, and wild conspiracy theories and misinformation about the carnage soon follow. Within hours of Tuesday's school shooting in Uvalde, Texas, another rash began as internet users spread baseless claims about the man named as the gunman and his possible motives.
Tens of thousands of Ontario residents are facing another day without power as restoration efforts continue following last weekend's vicious storm.
A fire in the neonatal unit of a hospital in Senegal has killed 11 newborns, President Macky Sall said. Only three infants could be saved.
Conservative Party of Canada leadership hopefuls Scott Aitchison, Roman Baber, Patrick Brown, Jean Charest, Leslyn Lewis, and Pierre Poilievre squared off in the second official party debate on Wednesday night in Laval, Que.
Canada is committing an extra $1 million to help the international community investigate sex crimes by Russian troops in Ukraine. Foreign Affairs Minister Mélanie Joly said Canada would give the extra funds to the International Criminal Court to help it investigate sexual violence toward women, and also crimes against children.
Frustrated onlookers urged police officers to charge into the Texas elementary school where a gunman's rampage killed 19 children and two teachers, witnesses said Wednesday, as investigators worked to track the massacre that lasted upwards of 40 minutes and ended when the 18-year-old shooter was killed by a U.S. Border Patrol team.
Families are sharing photos and stories of their loved ones, who lost their lives in a mass shooting in Texas that killed at least 19 children and two adults on Tuesday afternoon.
Several parts of the country, including British Columbia and Canada's Maritime provinces, are likely to see wetter-than-normal conditions this summer, according to AccuWeather's annual summer forecast.
The Public Health Agency of Canada says it has now confirmed a total of 16 cases of monkeypox in the country, all in Quebec.
As the inquiry into Nova Scotia’s mass shooting moves its public proceedings to Truro, many of the family members affected by the tragedy and their lawyers are boycotting the proceedings over the next week.
Former Chief Anchor Steve Murphy offers a timely perspective on the Mass Casualty Commission and the difference 30 years after the Westray inquiry.
Speaking off-script at an event in Halifax Wednesday morning, Canada's Minister of Public Safety said he was gutted by the latest mass shooting south of the border - the 27th in a school this year alone.
The insurance industry says it could take up to six weeks to get an idea of how many hundreds of millions of dollars in pay outs will be required from the weekend storm that brought death and destruction to Ontario and Quebec, but that early estimates are substantial.
Police have released new video of a recent incident in which a vehicle was caught doing doughnuts and speeding along the shoulder of busy Ontario roadways.
People all across Ontario are getting creative when it comes to netting a secondary income, otherwise known as a “side hustle,” and many are turning to secondhand economies thriving on online platforms.
Quebec's public health department is set to give its first press conference on the growing monkeypox outbreak as the province recorded its 16th confirmed case Wednesday.
Quebec politicians were not pleased with the federal Liberals' comments on Bill 96 and Bill 21, firing back with a slew of protests and even raising sovereignty as the solution.
Several of the six aspiring Conservative leaders expressed their opposition to Bill 96 during a French-language debate in Laval on Wednesday night, but others shied away from the opportunity to express their views on the issue.
Sault Ste. Marie city council is asking staff to prepare a report on group homes. This comes after Ward 1 Coun. Paul Christian brought forward concerns this week about two such homes.
There are currently a dozen statues at the Grotto of Our Lady of Lourdes property, and all are from the 1950s.
It’s a sign that summer is on the horizon. Farmers’ markets are opening in cities and towns across the north.
Victoria Day weekend fireworks violations spark new effort to implement a ban.
Two men and one woman are facing charges Wednesday after police say their vehicle struck a London police cruiser and then the suspects fled the scene on foot over the weekend.
OPP and Southwest Middlesex fire are on the scene of a fatal collision Wednesday afternoon involving a tanker truck and a passenger vehicle.
A new report out of the Canadian Institute for Health Information (CIHI) has found that most Manitobans have positive experiences with the health-care system in hospitals.
The Manitoba Government could turn to the military for help as it struggles with staffing shortages, overcrowding, and in some cases, temporary closures of emergency rooms.
The Manitoba government is hinting it may allow more alcohol sales through private channels to boost customer convenience.
New details are emerging about the tragic incident that killed 27-year-old Shelby Humble-Neale on Saturday.
Waterloo regional police say evidence of gunfire found in McLennan Park in Kitchener is connected to another shooting incident in the nearby area of Windflower Drive and Windflower Crescent.
Two 29-year-old men have been seriously injured following a collision in Baden, Ont., with one needing to be airlifted to a hospital outside the region.
The City of Calgary has recruited three people from the commercial real-estate sector in an effort to get a new event centre to replace the aging Scotiabank Saddledome.
After a massacre at a Texas elementary school, some are looking into safety protections against gun violence in Calgary's school system while mental health experts are offering advice for difficult conversations about mass shootings.
Those who haven't received their bill by the first week of June are asked to contact 311.
The Prime Minister toured the Vaccine and Infectious Disease Organization, which is working to develop a COVID-19 vaccine.
Saskatoon Police Service says that the use and presence of potent new synthetic opioids known as nitazenes are difficult to track and monitor.
A 48-year-old semi-truck driver was killed in in a rollover near Meadow Lake on Tuesday.
If you visit downtown Edmonton in the next 11 days, you might see some strange and unusual sights. Art installations and musical performances are popping up throughout the area as part of Downtown Spark.
Even though they cheer for opposite teams, a proposal by a Flames fan at Game 4 of the Battle of Alberta received a resounding "yes" from the Oilers-loving bride to be.
The body of a missing canoer has been located in northeast Alberta.
The decision to focus on urgent and emergency health care to avert long waits played a key role in B.C.’s current primary care crisis, and the costlier care is compounding the problem.
A social media video that captures the moment a man gets Tasered by a Vancouver police officer is prompting calls for more training for police going out mental health calls.
A judge has refused to grant a B.C. cannabis company an injunction against a man who used a list of email addresses the company accidentally sent to all shareholders against it.
Saskatchewan RCMP and the Washington State Patrol announced a collaboration of efforts to locate Mekayla Bali, who was 16-years-old when she was last on April 12, 2016 in Yorkton.
A new art exhibit at the George Bothwell Library is hoping to examine and remove the feeling of shame associated with people who are deaf and hard of hearing.
For those looking to hop the border into Manitoba for their camping seasons, it started off on the wrong foot for Duck Mountain Provincial Park.
