Residents from eight suites in a Burnaby apartment building scorched by flames early Friday morning won’t being going home tonight – but things could have been much worse, according to the city’s acting fire chief.
A crew from Fire Station 3 in Metrotown was called to 4325 Maywood St. at about 4:50 a.m., according to acting Chief Darcey O’Riordan.
They were initially called for a shrub fire, he said, but when they arrived, they found at least six vehicles under an open-air parking structure at the back of the lowrise building fully engulfed in flames.
“The carport angled out and up toward the building, so it was almost like a perfect torch going out against the building, which was only about 15 feet away,” O’Riordan said.
Fire Captain Jake Phillips immediately called for a second alarm, O’Riordan said, and his crew began extinguishing what they could, dousing the cars and the building to keep it cool.
“It could have been way worse,” O’Riordan said. “I think, honestly, they were probably just minutes away from it igniting the attic space of that building, and then it’s hard to fight because it gets trapped in there. The timing and the heads-up actions of that first-in crew definitely saved some lives.”
Other crews arrived shortly after and helped finish off the blaze, which shattered windows and melted vinyl soffits and window frames on the back of the building.
The flames also claimed two hydro poles and a hydro line, which BC Hydro is now in the process of replacing.
Residents from eight suites in the three-storey building were displaced and are being helped by City of Burnaby emergency social services, according to O’Riordan.
“There were quite a number of residents,” he said. “Our crews were going into the building to get some medications, personal effects that were very near and dear to them. They were escorting people in or going in for them this morning.”
The circumstances for the blaze were “unusual,” according to O’Riordan, who said another fire, a dumpster fire, had been reported a short distance away earlier in the morning.
“That’s a little concerning,” he said.
Fire investigators are on scene.
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