Calgary firefighters have found a body in the basement of a home destroyed by a fire in the southwest community of Evergreen late Saturday evening.

Fire officials have not identified the body at this time.

Earlier Sunday, the Calgary Fire Department was able to confirm a couple and their adult daughter lived in the home. The father and daughter are currently out of the country, but the mother is still in the city.

Fire Chief Bruce Burrell was on site on Sunday.

“Our goal of course is to have no fatalities from fire in the run of the year in the city of Calgary; unfortunately, we're not off to a very good start this year so our condolences go out to the family,” he said.

Fire crews were called to a home in the 100 block of Evergreen Way S.W. around 10:55 p.m. MT Saturday. As crews were en route to the scene, they could see heavy smoke in the distance, and immediately called in a second alarm.

When they arrived, Molineaux says they found a two-storey home engulfed in flames. He says the houses on either side were also at risk because of the intensity of the fire.

"Crews went defensive immediately, which means basically we didn't make entry into the house — it was too heavily involved with fire. We went into a defensive mode to protect the exposure and control the source fire," said Molineaux.

He says a ladder had to be extended 100 feet into the air to fight the fire from above, and protect the neighbouring homes. Crews also used a lot of water to protect the neighbours and pressurized the burning home to keep the fire from spreading.

"That proved to be successful," said Molineaux. "So far, we feel like the damage to the two adjoining houses on the left and right will be very superficial at most, but the source house looks like it will probably be a write-off."

Molineaux says it's still too soon to put a dollar value on the extent of the damage, but he says there was some structural collapse on the second floor.

Neighbours say the family moved into the home from Dubai about a year ago.

Calgary fire crews, along with police, say two people living in the home are out of town, but one women is still unaccounted for. (CBC)