DOZENS of residents of a North Vancouver apartment building faced a chilly morning Saturday when a suite in the complex caught fire, forcing them outside.
Occupants of the building at 163 West Fifth Street spent four to five hours out of their homes while crews dealt with fallout from the blaze.
A tenant of the three-storey low-rise discovered the fire at about 4: 30 a.m. when he got out of bed briefly and reportedly returned to his room to find his desk on fire. The man and his roommate attempted to douse the flames with pots of water, according to firefighters, but were unable to put them out before the suite and much of the hallway outside had filled with smoke.
The blaze triggered the building's alarm system, prompting the evacuation of all 42 residences. Fire crews arrived to find the flames more or less out, but the complex uninhabitable due to the fumes.
Firefighters called in a transit bus to shelter the residents while they waited for the building to be ventilated. A neighbouring complex also opened its doors.
The two occupants of the suite were treated on scene for smoke inhalation before being taken to hospital for observation. Neither was seriously injured.
The unit was heavily damaged, but the rest of the building escaped largely unscathed, said firefighters.
They credited heat and smoke detectors and a quick-thinking manager for preventing the incident from becoming much worse.
"In the last few years, we've seen many bad situations," said City of North Vancouver deputy fire chief Dave Burgess. "This one could have been one of those, and it turned out not to be."
The cause of the fire is under investigation.
jweldon@nsnews.com
