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CAMBRIDGE, N.S. —

Two people were taken to hospital and are now homeless after yet another house fire in Nova Scotia over the holidays.

Waterville firefighters were called to a century-old home on Cambridge Road in Cambridge just after 10:45 p.m. Friday.

“When I arrived there was heavy fire on the both the first and second floors,” fire chief Wayne Johnstone said.

At one point flames could be seen rolling out of the upstairs windows of one section of the house. People living two kilometres away reported smelling smoke from the fire.

Fire Friday night gutted this home on Cambridge Road in Cambridge, Kings County. The two residents were taken to hospital for treatment of smoke inhalation. - Adrian Johnstone

Johnstone said the two occupants were taken to hospital for treatment of smoke inhalation. One of the residents had tried unsuccessfully to quell the flames with a fire extinguisher after hearing the crackle of the fire in the walls or ceiling, and received some burns, the Canadian Red Cross said. The family pet escaped unharmed.

Firefighters from six neighbouring departments were called in to help with the stubborn fire, which gutted the home. Crews were forced to use ladders to access the second floor because of damage to the inside stairs.

A ladder truck was used to pour water on the flames on the second floor, but the fire burned into the ceiling. Holes were cut in the roof so it could be extinguished, and crews also pulled down ceilings and walls in the upstairs rooms to get at the remaining fire.

Fire Friday night gutted this home on Cambridge Road in Cambridge, Kings County. The two residents were taken to hospital for treatment of smoke inhalation. - Adrian Johnstone

The last firefighters left the scene more than five hours after the blaze was reported.

Johnstone said the fire appears to have started around a stainless steel chimney that ran up through the one-storey sections of the home and spread from there.

There were no other injuries.

Waterville firefighters had been out the previous night at a barn fire. Earlier on Thursday evening, two people were left homeless after a fire in their mini-home in New Minas.

On Christmas Day, an early morning fire destroyed a mobile home in Nappan, and a late-afternoon blaze heavily damaged one unit in a large apartment building in Dartmouth.

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