2 homes damaged in early morning fire in southeast Calgary

Officials say an early morning fire in southeast Calgary is under control, but two homes were damaged.

The Calgary Fire Department was called to a home in the 2000 block of 41 Street S.E., in the community of Forest Lawn, at 3:45 a.m.

When firefighters arrived, they saw smoke and flames at the home and an adjacent duplex.

The first home was unoccupied, but six people in the duplex escaped safely.

No one was injured.

Officials tell CTV News it appears the fire began in the space between the two homes.

Jasmine Sablay, who lives in the duplex, says she was shocked, but knew to call 911.

"I didn't actually know what to do," she told CTV News on Wednesday. "Luckily, the person on the phone was guiding me through what to say and what to do. I grabbed my daughter and we left the house.

"The fire just started to spread into my home."

Sablay says her house has been "completely destroyed."

Another resident, Tommy Nguyen, says he woke up to his dad shouting.

"(He was) just yelling at us all (to) get out of the house. There's a fire. Obviously, we didn't know what was actually going on because we were still kind of asleep. But we ran out we saw this huge fire on our neighbour's yard."

Sablay said there was a fire at the home next door a year earlier and soon after, it was boarded up by the City of Calgary. She doesn't know how Wednesday's fire began, but said people were still living on the property.

"People had been living outside of it in tents. We saw it like a couple of weeks ago," she said.

Firefighters are expected to remain in the area for several hours.