CALGARY - A body has been found in the basement of a home destroyed by fire in southwest Calgary Saturday night.
The Calgary Fire Department responded to the fire in the 100 block of Evergreen Way SW, just before 11:00 p.m.
Defensive firefighting tactics were used on the two-storey single family home to keep the fire from spreading to surrounding homes, which were evacuated as a precaution.
Neighbour Jennifer Edgecombe said the fire spread rapidly.
"From my son's window I looked out and the flames were coming out from the back of the house. I bolted downstairs, grabbed the phone, called 911 and within minutes, within seconds, the house was just engulfed. It's horrible, absolutely horrible."
A family of three is known to live at the address.
Battalion Chief Ernie Molineaux confirmed that two of the three residents who lived in the home are out of the country right now.
Molineaux said investigators are now working to figure out the cause of the fire.
"We are going to have to take it down piece by piece; it's not a safe structure right now. We'll do a thorough search of the residence at that time. As we do that, we'll also be looking for where the fire began and how it began."
The name or gender of the person has not been released.
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