Ottawa family reunites with father, daughter who saved them from house fire

Leah Van Will (left), Scott Van Will and Jolene Scherr stand outside Scherr’s Carp home on Tuesday, July 14. (Dylan Dyson/CTV News Ottawa)

Jolene Scherr never would have imagined that a wrong turn by a stranger would be the moment that potentially saved her and her family’s lives.

On July 6, Scherr was at her home on Diamondview Road in Carp with her four children and husband when through her front window she saw a man running up her driveway.

That man was Kanata resident Scott Van Will, along with his daughter, Leah.

“It wasn’t until the doorbell rang and then I heard Scott’s voice from the doorway that we had a fire that we all just kind of ran to the foyer to see what was going on,” Scherr recounts from Monday last week.

“[We saw] very black smoke,” said Van Will.

“And as we were just coming up close, there was a little flicker of fire out of the corner of the garage at the back. So we pulled over and that’s when I ran out of the car, and Leah’s behind me and I’m telling her to call 9-1-1.”

In the frantic moments that followed, Scherr and her family escaped the home as the fire spread rapidly.

“I saw the fire in the garage. From what I saw, it was just a box. I’m like, we’ll just get the box,” Scherr said.

“So, I just grabbed it and I threw it out of the garage, and then I turned around and I was like, no, there was so much more there.”

Van Will says it was by dumb luck that he and his daughter happened to be driving by that Monday afternoon. Coincidentally, Scherr’s road also happens to one that he often drives.

“We have our horses out at Silver Creek Ranch down the road. We feed them every day, so we go by here every day, almost,” he said.

Van Will says he and his daughter were on their way to Perth when they drove by the fire. Scott says instinct kicked in after turning down Diamondview Road so many times.

“The funniest thing was we weren’t even supposed to be there because it just happened to be that I took the wrong turn off the highway,” he remembers.

Ottawa Fire Services responded to the blaze shortly before 6 p.m. that Monday, and had the flames extinguished by 7 p.m.

Scherr says fire services are still trying to determine the cause of the fire.

Living in a hotel days after the fire, Scherr needed to find the people that saved her and her family’s lives.

She says the moment was all a blur and couldn’t remember the names of the people who came knocking on her door.

But Scherr did have footage on her phone recorded from her doorbell camera of the moment Van Will ran up to the house. She posted it online, determined to reunite.

“It was just important (to find them) because we’ve had fires in Carp before where farms and things like that get devastated. Carp is one of a kind. Like, the community here is unbelievable,” said Scherr.

Through the power of social media, Scherr and the Van Will’s embraced once again eight days later, this time with smiles.

“It’s like, the bare minimum you can do is just make sure you’re checking that they know something’s going on,” said Van Will on his reason for stopping that Monday. “It’s like the neighbour leaving a garage door open, right.”

Originally from Louisiana, Scherr has called Canada home for more than 30 years now.

Seeing the home that multiple generations living in it now charred to the bones was a tough reality for her to accept.

“There’s a lot of memories made there and there’s a lot of memories that aren’t going to be made there. And I think that’s what’s hitting my older daughter; it’s just that she wanted to have babies in that house. She said there’s things that still needed to be done there.”

With that in mind, Scherr says the family’s intention is to rebuild on the property, adding they do not want to leave behind the area, view, or the community.

“I’m just so glad that Jolene and her family were safe,” said Van Will. “(They) are able to rebuild and have a life going forward.”

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