Viktoriia Leshchenko had just bought her fourth-floor condo at Prestwick Villas back in October, and now she, like many others must find new belongings and a place to live.

Calgary firefighters responded to a fire around 10 p.m. on June 23 in the southeast Calgary community of Prestwick. A second alarm was also called out to ensure adequate resources were on scene, fire officials said.

The entire roof and top floor of the affected structure in the multi-building complex was severely damaged. Fire officials said that the building had 48 units, and there is water damage throughout. 

Leshchenko, who is from Ukraine and a divorced mom of a 10-year-old daughter, wanted a fresh start in a new location.

“I’m divorced and I bought this apartment in October, so I can start my life from a new page,” she told LWC.

“Right now, everything is destroyed.”

Initially, Leshchenko received a call from her daughter who was at home with a friend for a planned sleepover. Her daughter told her everything was on fire. She took the dog, and her friend, and they safely escaped.

One family member is still missing. Cat (that’s the feline’s name).

“I don’t care about the building. I don’t care about the stuff,” Leshchenko said.

“My cat. It’s my family. He’s at home and he’s afraid and I can’t grab him because I was here yesterday and they told me I’m not allowed to come to the building.”

According to fire officials, the Red Cross has set up a reception centre and they’re assessing the needs of building residents. The Calgary police and AHS are assisting with those efforts.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation.

‘Spread extremely fast’

Dakota Holmes was making a cup of coffee, prepping for another night shift at the nearby McDonalds, when he heard the yelling, the lights and the sirens. He walked out the front door of his townhouse in the same complex and looked to his left and saw smoke, then fire.

“Not only that, it spread extremely fast. It started as just a bit of fire and I was like, ‘Oh, this is bad.’ But then it just ‘poof’ and it was like really bad,” he said.  

“At that moment I woke up my girlfriend, I woke up my mom and my brother  – everyone – because I was like this could get really bad.”

Holmes said he kept thinking about what he could grab if they were forced to leave – his laptop, their passports, and he wanted to ensure there was a clear path to the electrical box. 

The westerly winds whipped through the area last night. That blew the smoke towards Colin Edwards’ house a few doors to the east of the complex that burned. That’s when he was first alerted to the fire.

“You can just see the pile of smoke. And then yeah, you know, it’s bad when you hear fire trucks, like there was fire trucks for two hours,” said Edwards, who has lived in the neighbourhood for 14 years.

There was some worry that the fire could spread toward the homes squeezed together on the small street.

“That’s the problem with new areas… it was a lot,” he said.

“You could see the flames coming off the roof.”

Given Calgary’s water situation, Mayor Jyoti Gondek mentioned the overnight fire in her morning update on the water main break. She said Calgarians used 467 million litres of water Sunday. While that’s still below the threshold, it’s creeping towards that 480 million level to ensure water is available for emergencies like this one.

“Yesterday, we had another very good example of why that supply is so important, the Calgary Fire Department battled a fire in the community of Prestwick last night,” she said.

“Our ability to use less water for our daily routine has really resulted in folks at the Calgary Fire Department being able to access water when they need it for critical, critical situations like the one last night.

Global Calgary reported that fire Chief Steve Dongworth said three million litres were used to douse the Prestwick fire.