A chance encounter led to an Okotokian preventing what could have been a disastrous fire.

On Tuesday evening (Dec. 20) at around 9 p.m., Calgary resident Judy Coumont and her husband were stirred by someone at the door.

"We heard some banging on the door, very loudly. My husband opens the door, and there's a man saying our trucks on fire, which it is, and it's parked very close to our house with two vehicles beside it... If this gentleman, Bryce Schutte, hadn't come by, we could've lost everything."

Bryce owns Phonephix in Okotoks and was only in the area because he was picking up a cellphone he'd purchased online.

"I missed the house and went around the corner into a little cul-de-sac, and I noticed a fire in a driveway. I was thinking, ' ah, that's cool, having a fire outside.' Then I remember it's like -40 outside and people shouldn't be outside having fires. I could see just underneath this truck in this driveway there's like a line of flames. So I pulled up to this house, jumped out, and the front of the truck was all on fire," says Schutte.

After the homeowners answered the door, the three leapt into action, dousing the fire with snow.

The fire seemed to have started in the truck's block heater, which was plugged into an extension cord.

Schutte thinks he happened upon the fire pretty soon after it started, and it would've only needed a few minutes to spread to the house and other vehicles.

Not wanting to keep Judy and her husband out in the extreme cold in their indoor clothes, Schutte took off pretty quickly, to Judy's dismay.

"I was yelling at him, I was like 'sir, sir, you cannot leave, I need to know your name!' And he goes 'oh, I just gave my card to your husband,' and just went away.'"

She's since been to both of Schutte's business locations, and though he didn't happen to be around either time, she dropped off a gift basket for him in Okotoks.

For the Coumonts, it was quite an unexpected Christmas present.

"It could have been horrific for us... He changed our whole future."