'Instinct kicked in': Off-duty Vaughan firefighter rescues Barrie neighbour from fire

Elderly woman in good condition following March 9 fire

Yorkregion.com
March 20, 2020
Rick Vanderlinde

It didn’t take Jaqueline Rasenberg long to spring into action.

As soon as she heard an elderly woman was still inside a burning Barrie house March 9, the off-duty Vaughan firefighter ran toward the inferno looking for a way to get inside.

“Instinct kicked in and I just ran across the road immediately,” Rasenberg said.

The front of the house was fully engulfed in flames after a fire that started in the garage spread quickly throughout the front of her neighbour’s Country Lane house.

Rasenberg ran to the back, hoping for an unlocked patio door or window. But there was no way in and she didn’t have anything to smash the glass.

That’s when another neighbour, who was carrying a small step ladder, suddenly showed up.

“We used that to bust the patio door in,” she said. “We were in the kitchen area and I could see her ahead of me.”

The bewildered woman, who uses a walker to get around, was standing at the bottom of the stairs, holding the banister. She was in pyjamas with nothing on her feet.

The place was filled with smoke and fire was encroaching as a wind tunnel created by an open front door and the smashed patio door whipped the flames into a frenzy.

“We scooped her up and we brought her out the patio door,” Rasenberg said. “She was in shock. When she was in the house she kept asking what’s happening, what’s happening?”

Barrie firefighters and Simcoe County paramedics arrived soon after and the woman was taken to hospital to be treated for possible smoke inhalation. Rasenberg said she’s learned she is in good condition and back with family.

“I’m just glad she is doing well,” she said.

The neighbour who helped her, whom she only knows as Matt, deserves credit for acting so quickly, she said.

“It was dark and it happened so fast. I sat with the grandmother for a while and he just disappeared.”

Rasenberg, a captain with Vaughan Fire, has been a firefighter for 23 years. But it’s the first time she has ever had to enter a house to rescue someone.

“I knew she was in there and I had to do what I could do because I couldn’t hear any sirens so I wasn’t sure how far the fire service was before getting there.”

Vaughan Fire Chief Deryn Rizzi commended Rasenberg for taking action so quickly.

Barrie Fire was able to knock back the blaze before it spread throughout the entire house, which is located in southeast Barrie near Mapleview Drive. Damage to the home and its contents is estimated at about $400,000.

An investigation blamed careless smoking in the garage for causing the fire.

Six people, including the grandmother, were displaced by the fire, which Barrie Fire spokesperson Samantha Hoffman called “accidental but preventable.”

Hoffman added placing a heat detector in your garage because a smoke alarm is not designed to be installed in non-insulated/unheated areas.

“It’s going to give you some early warning,” she said.