A fire in a North Vancouver townhouse could have taken a turn for the worse if it had not been for two quick thinking kids.
Six-year-old Quinn Beatch was heading over to a friend's house in the 4000 block of Hoskins Road on Saturday at around 1 p.m. when she heard an alarm.
"I was walking over to see if my best friend could play and I heard a fire alarm go off," said Beatch. "And as I got closer to her door, it got louder so I assumed it was her fire alarm."
Beatch tried knocking on the door but there was no response from inside.
"Their dog didn't bark. He usually barks when I knock on the door," she said.
She was running home to tell her mom when another friend, 11-year-old Sammy Bradford-Niemi, came out to walk her dog. The girls ran back over to the townhouse to make sure it was not a false alarm.
"We saw smoke from the attic," said Bradford-Niemi, who turns 12 next month. "We ran home and told my mom and she came over there too and she looked and said 'Yeah there's something burning in there.'" Sammy's mother ran home to tell her husband and get him to call the fire department When they got back to the townhouse, they saw the main floor was full of smoke and a crowd had formed. One of the other neighbours had also called 9-1-1. North Vancouver RCMP spokesman Cpl Richard De Jong said the fire department was already on scene when police arrived.
"They had to break in because nobody was inside," said De Jong.
Luckily, the fire was contained within the kitchen. De Jong said the family had left a pot boiling on the stove and though there was a lot of smoke damage, the fire could have been much worse.
Bradford-Niemi said she was really nervous and scared. "It was very frightening," Bradford-Niemi said. "The place would have been in flames in ten minutes if we hadn't have called."
Beatch said she feels great now, adding her friend who lives in the townhouse is really happy about what she did.
But the event was still scary, she said. "I was terrified because she's my best friend."
De Jong commended the two girls for being observant and taking action.
"It was very alert, very astute," he said. Quinn's mom, Michelle Beatch, was also very proud. "You hope that the things you teach them pay off and it's certainly a good example of all the skills that kids acquire that they can put to use," she said. "It's wonderful."
