A Yellowknife family is lucky to be alive after a frightening incident at their home on Dagenais Drive.
Marina and Scott Dyke and their family received a rude awaking at approximately 2:00 a.m. on Tuesday. An explosion blew a wall out of their house, subsequently setting the house ablaze.
The portion of their home where their family was sleeping at the time was unaffected long enough for their family to escape unharmed, including their dogs but not their two cats, though they were found later that day.
Because of the quick arrival from the Yellowknife Fire Division, the family was able to salvage some items from their home.
The cause of the explosion inside of their residence is unknown with the Office of the Fire Marshal taking over the investigation.
Dwayne Simmons, Marina Dyke’s brother, started a gofundme campaign on behalf of his sister and her family.
Simmons said he received a call from his sister at 2:45 a.m. He rushed over to the scene to help in any way he could.
“The house is a complete loss and everything in it,” he said in his gofundme page. “It’ll be a long road to getting their lives back together.”
The campaign goal of $10,000 was achieved the same day in excess. As of Tuesday afternoon, a total of $19,990 was raised to help the family pick up the pieces.
Simmons said that he was overwhelmed with the generosity from the community.
“Yellowknife is just such a fantastic place,” he said. “They step up time and time again, no matter what. The most overwhelming part of all of this is just a generosity. My sister and her husband, they can’t express enough how grateful they are for the community and all our friends and family abroad.
“They all have a lot more relief this evening, thanks to the support that they’ve gotten from the community.”
An assessment of the cost of the damages has not yet been completed, but will be published when the information becomes available.
Liam Radford, an employee of Commercial NDS, helped put the power behind the blast into perspective.
“When we came here at 4:00 a.m., we thought the firefighters moved the couches and stuff out of the house but it was actually propelled out of the house from the explosion,” he said.
Dyke and her family have found a temporary living arrangement, and a long term option is being worked on.
“It’ll probably be a year, I would imagine, before she’ll be able to move back into a new house,” said Simmons.