CBC MARKETPLACE: YOUR HOME » HOUSE ON FIRE!
A tale of two fires ... and two insurance claims
Broadcast: October 10, 2004

There are more than 20,000 residential fires in Canada every year

Within the next 23 minutes a home in Canada will catch fire. It's a nightmare Kathy Collishaw and Don MacKenna have already lived through. So have Erik Mohr and Tania Janthur.

DARTMOUTH, NOVA SCOTIA

The fire at Kathy Collishaw and Don MacKenna's apartment was sparked by a welder's torch. The couple's apartment was the hardest hit in the building. A lot of the damage was caused by the firefighters themselves, as they struggled to stifle the flames.

After the fire was extinguished, Kathy is allowed in to check out her ravaged home. She wonders if she and Don will ever be able to live in the apartment again.

The couple grabs what they can from the charred wreckage --some medication and a few bags of smoky smelling clothes. As they head out, a clean-up crew begins tossing what can't be saved into the trash.

Kathy and Don pay $116 a year for apartment insurance for their belongings. She assumes they’ll just get another apartment and their insurance will cover replacing their stuff.

But she soon learns that putting their life back together after a fire is a lot more complicated than they thought.

MORE: Kathy and Don's story: An apartment fire »

TORONTO, ONTARIO

Every 23 minutes another Canadian home catches fire

On a tree-lined street in downtown Toronto there's been another fire. Another couple's home has been destroyed. The inferno was set off by a leak in a gas line in the home's basement.

Erik Mohr, Tania Janthur and their young daughter escaped with the clothes on their backs. Just like Don and Kathy, they were insured, and had no inkling that watching their house on fire was only the beginning of their ordeal.

"I knew at the time," says Tania, "that it’s going to be the piecing it together afterwards that would be more difficult -- and I was very right about that."

MORE: Tania and Erik's story: A house fire »