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A fire broke out at a residence on Latimer Road in South Frontenac township late Saturday afternoon.
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South Frontenac Fire and Rescue (SFFR) was dispatched to a home at 4699 Latimer Road at 4:24 p.m. on Saturday, following reports of a garage fire.
According to Lachlan Obdie, a neighbour who lives directly across the street, he alerted the family renting the property after noticing smoke seeping out from around the closed garage door.
Obdie said they hadn’t lived there long.
“They moved in just a few weeks before Christmas, I think. I was away for the holidays, so I don’t really know them at all,” Obdie said.
Obdie was sure he was one of, if not the first, to notice the signs of fire.
Longtime Latimer Road resident Lachlan Obdie was the first responder when he alerted his neighbour at 4699 Latimer Rd. that his garage was on fire. The flames soon spread to the house in South Frontenac Township on Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. Photo by Bill Hall /The Whig-Standard
“I was going to go and knock on the front door or side door, but I thought I could see someone in the side yard, so I poked my head over the fence and said, ‘Hey buddy, you got smoke coming out of your garage. I think there’s a fire,” Obdie recalled. “Just as I said that, she came out of the house with her son.”
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“He rushed over and opened the garage door,” Obdie said. “Up until then, it was mostly just billowing black smoke. Once it was open, it was clear that there was a fire.”
According to Obdie, he advised the man to remove a propane tank that was visible from the open door, and he did. Obdie said an all-terrain vehicle couldn’t be removed quickly enough and was lost to the fire because a car was blocking it in the driveway.
According to Obdie, once they removed the car, they realized their two dogs were still in the house. He said they coaxed the dogs out and sheltered them in the car, running it to provide warmth. He said by then the fire had spread to the house.
South Frontenac Fire and Rescue fight a house fire on Latimer Road in South Frontenac Township on Saturday, Jan. 3, 2026. Photo by Bill Hall /The Whig-Standard
By 6 p.m., the fire had spread to the attic, and according to PulsePoint, a 911-connected mobile app, 12 fire and rescue units from three different fire stations were on site at that time.
Obdie has been a resident of Latimer Road for about 20 years and recalled a fire just a few doors down several years earlier.
“It was about seven or eight years ago,” he said. I don’t know if there were insurance issues, but it sat for a year after the fire. It took at least a couple of years to restore it.”
Bihall@postmedia.com
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