Saskatoon couple grateful to firefighters for saving acreage

Forty-six years of memories nearly went up in smoke for a Saskatoon couple after a grass fire tore through their acreage Monday afternoon.

Shortly after 1:30 p.m., the Saskatoon Fire Department was called to a blaze on the 300 block of 71st Street. The fire quickly spread north — straight for Darlene and Ted Kusch’s homestead on the outskirts of the city.

Darlene was leaving the CIBC on Circle Drive when she looked north and noticed heavy smoke billowing into the sky.

“I thought, ‘That is just too close to us,’ ” she recalled.

Worried about her wheelchair-bound husband, she raced home.

“I came home and said, ‘I don’t want to scare you, but I think we are going to have to leave,’ ” Darlene said. “The wind was coming in the right direction. I could see flames coming towards our area. I got him in the car and the dog and we just left.”

The scorched ground from a fire on the Kusch acreage on the north edge of Saskatoon.

Darlene and Ted watched from the road as firefighters from Saskatoon and Warman worked to save their home.

The flames crept within 75 feet of their home before crews gained control and suppressed the fire. Darlene said there’s no doubt in her mind they would’ve lost their house had it not been for the firefighters’ efforts.

“It’s amazing,” she said. “We sure can’t thank that fire departments enough (for) what they did for us.”

The strong smell of smoke still lingered on Friday and the blackened trees and grass are a stark reminder of how close the couple came to losing it all.

“Our story would be different today. We’d be trying to figure out what the heck to do with our lives from now on,” she laughed.

“Seventy-eight years old. It’s pretty scary (thought) to start all over again.”

The Saskatoon Fire Department said wind and dry conditions were a factor in the fire, but did not reveal the cause.