Fire destroys Rocky View County family’s home weeks before move-in – DiscoverAirdrie.com

Three weeks before they were planning to move in, Danielle Losier and her family were still living in a travel trailer beside the house they had been building north of Cochrane.

The children kept asking to sleep inside. The answer was no.

The drywall was nearly finished. Floor stencils were going in. Bedrooms were taking shape. After more than three years of living in a travel trailer while building their home by hand, the end finally felt close.

The Losier family home under construction north of Cochrane prior to the Jan. 26 fire. Much of the structure was built using second-hand materials sourced privately. Photo / GoFundMe

The Losier working family on the foundation of the home they had been building on raw land north of Cochrane. The family spent more than three years constructing the house themselves. Photo / GoFundMe

“The kids had been begging to spend the night in there,” Losier said. “But we didn’t have the fire alarms in yet, so we weren’t letting them.”

In the early morning hours of Jan. 26, Losier said the family’s decision not to stay overnight in the unfinished home proved critical.

At 2:13 a.m., Rocky View County Fire Services was dispatched to a structure fire north of Cochrane. Crews from Fire Stations 101 (Elbow Valley), 102 (Springbank), and 103 (Bearspaw) responded, along with mutual aid from the Town of Cochrane and Redwood Meadows Fire Department.

Danielle and John Losier with their children in a family photo taken before a Jan. 26 fire destroyed their home north of Cochrane. Photo / GoFundMe

One occupant was transported to hospital by EMS for assessment. The fire investigation has since concluded, and the cause is not considered suspicious, according to Rocky View County Fire Services.

By the time Losier reached the highway to guide responding crews, the house she and her husband John had been building for 3.5 years — along with the travel trailer their family had been living in beside it — was fully engulfed.

“At about 2:30 in the morning, we woke up to the trailer bright orange,” Losier said. “We grabbed the kids and opened the trailer door to a wall of fire.”

“The house had caught fire and was starting to catch the trailer,” she said. “We ran out, got the kids in the truck.”

John stayed behind, trying to move animals to safety and slow the spread of the fire. Losier took the children up to the gate at the highway to guide firefighters and keep them warm.

“By the time I got up to the highway, the house and trailer were entirely engulfed,” she said. “The car next to the trailer was melting.”

John was able to get most of the animals out. One did not make it.

Sunny, the Losier family’s dog, in a photo taken before the Jan. 26 fire. Sunny did not survive the blaze. Photo / GoFundMe

“Our little Yorkie, Sunny, was lost in the fire,” Losier said. “We couldn’t locate him when he hid, and ultimately weren’t able to get him out in time. He had been sleeping at the end of our bed.”

The house, the trailer, and everything inside were destroyed.

“We had tons of stuff stored in the house,” Losier said. “All of our tools for building the house. I’m at the property right now trying to clean up, and I keep turning around for my tools — and they’re all gone.”

Because outbuildings were not permitted until the house was finished, building materials and generators were stored inside the structure and were also lost.

“We don’t even have a power source right now,” she said. “We’re trying to figure out how to get the well pump running again so we can water the animals without hauling water in.”

For more than three years, the Losiers had been building the home themselves on raw land, living full-time in a travel trailer.

“We were general contracting ourselves,” Losier said. “We were trying to build the house on our income, step by step, my husband and I doing as much ourselves as we could.”

Much of the house was built around materials they had already sourced.

“About 80 per cent of the building materials were collected before we even designed the house,” she said. “We designed the house around them.”

That included a full window package purchased from a cancelled build.

“We bought a window package for about $6,000 and designed the house around those windows,” Losier said. “The original invoice from the builder had them priced around $30,000.”

The same approach was used throughout the build, with trusses, roofing materials, and other major components sourced second-hand.

“Even if insurance covers them, they might give us the $6,000,” she said. “But now we’d have to order custom windows, and that’s probably back to $30,000.”

She said much of the material was purchased privately, with cash, through online marketplaces or auctions.

The family also invested significant personal labour into the home itself.

“I spent a month putting epoxy into maple slab countertops,” Losier said. “When we go on vacations or hikes, the kids and my husband collect little heart-shaped rocks and pinecones. We embedded those into the countertops and tabletops.”

That labour, she said, was not reflected in how the home was insured.

The house was insured under a builders risk policy.

“That was the only insurance available to us that we knew of,” Losier said.

She said it was only after the fire that the family began to understand the limits of that coverage.

“He told us that anything you could take with you when you moved was not covered,” she said. “Not the stove, not the dishwasher, not the tools. None of it.”

Coverage, she said, would be limited to costs the family could document.

“Our labour — our own labour — meant nothing,” she said.

The travel trailer was not covered under the builders risk policy. The family’s vehicle did not have comprehensive insurance.

“We had no idea the trailer wouldn’t be covered,” Losier said. “We probably would have parked it much farther from the house if we’d known.”

Now displaced, the family is staying with others while trying to determine next steps.

“We’re sleeping on couches and floors right now,” she said. “We want to get back to the property as soon as we can so the kids can start taking the bus again and going to school.”

The family is actively looking for another travel trailer so they can return to the land and begin cleanup and demolition.

“At our price range, it just takes longer to find something that works,” Losier said.

Neighbours, teachers, and school staff reached out in the days after the fire, offering clothes, gift cards, and help with immediate needs.

A GoFundMe campaign set up by a family member to help the Losiers begin rebuilding had raised more than $9,600 toward a $40,000 goal as of publication.

Looking ahead, Losier said the most difficult part is the time.

“We had a very clear timeline for the kids,” she said. “They had already sacrificed a lot.”

Weeks from moving in, they are now starting over.

“That time frame between now and getting back in the house,” she said. “That’s the hardest part.”

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