Cottage on Buck Lake goes up in flames

Jeff Green | May 16, 2018

Burnt Point Lane on Buck Lake lived up to its name last Sunday afternoon, when a cottage went up in flames and was a total loss. South Frontenac Fire Crews from 5 stations rushed to the site after receiving the call at 2:45pm. They found “the cottage was fully involved and collapsing into itself” said Fire Chief Darcy Knott. The cottage was unoccupied at the time of the fire although people had been there that morning and the previous evening. Crews immediately began to focus on a brush fire that had developed as the result of the structure, and soon had split into two teams. One team worked on containing the 8 acre brush fire that had developed while the other team made sure that the cottage fire was fully out.

Crews from stations 4-8 answered the call. The station 4 and 8 crews stood down relatively quickly but the station 5,6, and 7 crews remained on the scene for several hours, not leaving until after 8pm.

It was the first structure fire in the township since Chief Knott assumed leadership of the department on May 1 and he was impressed by the way the crews handled the situation.

“The crews did a fantastic job and their commitment to the municipality and the fire department is very strong. It gave me a sense of pride and a little bit of peace to see how well everyone handled the fire,” he said, adding that the terrain made containing the brush fire a difficult task.

Because the cottage was completely destroyed, Knott said that the there is no way to determine the cause of the fire. It has been listed as of undetermined cause and no further investigation will be undertaken.