North Vancouver City Fire Department is praising the actions of three young people who alerted a group of Queensbury residents to a house on fire and helped to evacuate victims from the burning building.
The fire broke out in the home on the 400-block of Ridgeway Avenue around 2:44 a.m. Sunday. Crews arrived on scene to find heavy smoke and flames but the 12 residents and two guests who were in the three-unit home were safe outside thanks to the actions of three passersby, according to Fire Chief Dan Pistilli.
Two men and a woman in their early 20s were walking by when they saw the fire and started banging on the doors.
“They actually helped evacuate some of the tenants from the lower suite, right in around the area where the fire was at,” Pistilli said. “They got right in there. They knocked a section of the fence over and pulled (a woman) to safety out of her suite door.”
The selfless act won’t go unrecognized, Pistilli said.
“I will be talking to them and we’re going to introduce a fire department award of bravery,” he said.
But while the families may have escape physical harm, they have a tough road ahead. None of the households had fire insurance and B.C. Emergency Social Services only provides shelter for burned out families for 72 hours.
“They’ve been taken care of for three days but they’re on their own after that,” Pistilli said.
Donations can be made through the North Shore Emergency Management Office.
The occupants ranged from an infant to two grandmothers visiting from Ireland and the Philippines.
It’s not clear whether the house can be salvaged or how the fire started, though investigators are looking at the possibility it was electrical in nature.
“It looks like it started on the exterior of the house and worked its way up the south wall of the residence and up into the attic space where it burnt itself across the attic. It’s substantial damage to the structure,” Pistilli said. “We had the area sealed off. The RCMP were there with us to try to rule out any criminal activity, which there appears not to be but the investigation continues,” he said.
Fire crews were roused again in the early morning hours on Monday to knock down a Grand Boulevard area shed fire that had spread to the nearby fence and trees. The cause appears to have been the remnants of a fire used for a marshmallow roast earlier in the evening, Pistilli said.
“The careless discarding of the ashes got this going,” he said. “A neighbour woke up and noticed the shed and the trees and fence involved. Lucky that they were up at 3:45 a.m. to alert us.”
