A home in Pickering has been destroyed and the woman who lives there is still missing after a fire ripped through the residence early Wednesday morning.
Fire crews were called to Echo Point Court, near Dixie and Kingston roads north of Highway 401, at 4:45 a.m. on Wednesday.
Durham regional police say the resident of the home is unaccounted for.
Neighbours say a woman in her 60s lives in the home and hasn’t been seen for some time. They also claim she is a hoarder.
Fire officials won’t speculate yet if they’re dealing with a hoarding situation.
Fire destroys home on Echo Point Court in Pickering. Owner still unaccounted for. Neighbours say she is hoarder in her 60’s. This is neighbourhood where 2 suspicious fires in past month. Fire officials say too early to determine cause here & if suspicious. pic.twitter.com/f3fW6dEQKe
— carl hanstke (@carl680) March 28, 2018
One neighbour said some of the other neighbours “smelled smoke at 2 a.m. but no one called it in until 4:45 a.m. [when] there was huge flames.”
The roof of the home and the main floor collapsed. A home next door was also heavily damaged.
The Ontario fire marshal has been called in. The cause of the fire is not yet known, but fire officials say it is not suspicious.
This is the second morning in a row that Pickering Fire has been called to a house fire. On Tuesday, a fire gutted a townhouse and damaged two neighbouring homes on Alwin Circle near Kingston and Brock roads.
