Fire in Sharbot Lake Levels Cottage

Jeff Green | Jan 18, 2017

Martin Webster is having trouble focusing these days. He has lived at the Cooke family cottage on Sharbot Lake, off Gordon Crescent, since 1997, next to the house where his mother Deanna lives with his step-father Ronnie Cooke. Now he is fortunate to be able to take refuge with them, but his home of nearly 20 years has been reduced to ashes.

He had been doing work on the inside of the building, and was almost done save for dry-walling his bedroom, when a short circuit in an extension cord sent out a spark that caught the house on fire on January 5th. He shared an account of what happened that day with the News.

“I was in the house at the time, doing some gaming on a PS3 player, when my pet red squirrel started chirping frantically. I opened the bedroom door to see that the plastic vapour barrier I had put up in preparation for new drywall had caught fire and smoke was pouring out. The flames had already climbed the walls and were spreading on the ceiling. I ran to get a hose to try and put the flames out but when I got back I realised it was too late. I grabbed one of my guitars on the way out of the house. The fire department arrived but there was no saving the house. Fortunately they managed to prevent the fire from spreading to my mother’s house,” he said.

The house is a total loss. It left Martin devoid of his home and all his possessions save for the guitar and some papers.

“I pretty well lost everything else,” he said this week, “it’s  a hard thing to get my head around. I’m sitting in my mother’s living room and I say ‘I guess I’ll go home now, and then I realise my home is gone.”

He has had help from The Treasure Trunk and the Sharbot Lake Pharmasave. The extended Cooke family has deep roots in Sharbot Lake, and has provided support for Martin, but he is still struggling to cope with the loss.

The property where the cottage was located is the site of the original Cooke family home, and where 9 children were raised by Samuel and Mildred Cooke. It sat on a hill overlooking the K&P Trail and Sharbot Lake.

Martin Webster can be reached at 613-279-3261.

(Editors note – The fire took place on January 5th, but we missed out on coverage last week. We apologize for the omission)