Update: The OPP reports that unidentified human remains have been found inside the building and have been sent to the Centre of Forensic Sciences for further analysis.
The log house belonging to Alexya (Lexy) Solomon, 58, located on the Eighth Line in Hillsburgh, ON, burned to the ground sometime between the late evening of Jan. 17th and the morning of the 18th. While the Hillsburgh OPP list the occupant as “unaccounted for,” her friends fear that she perished in the blaze, as her veterinarian arrived in the morning to find the house in ashes and the horses unfed in their stalls. “We know that no horseperson would not feed their horses,” said a close friend who did not wish to be identified. “Its’s really, really sad. She was a wonderful, positive, really good person who loved her horses and worked really hard.”
The fire did not involve the barn, which houses five horses and is some distance from the house. A dog and birds may also have been lost in the blaze. Currently, friends are looking after the horses “around the clock pretty much.”
Immigrating from the Bahamas 30 years ago, Solomon had two sons, Alexander and Austin, and one grandchild and was a fixture on the hunter/jumper ‘A’ circuit for decades, beginning many years ago when she and ex-husband Robert Sharpe owned a farm in Hillsburgh. Last year, she campaigned Uvalier in Ontario shows in the metre 1.10/1.20 divisions.
No cause for the fire has been officially provided, although there was a wood stove in the residence. A combination of the heavy fog, rain and the fact the house was a long way off the road may have contributed to the fact that the fire went undetected.
Updates will be provided as they become available from OPP and the Ontario fire marshall.
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