An early morning apartment fire in Burnaby Thursday could have ended much worse for one resident if firefighters had decided to come into the building from a different direction, according to a deputy fire chief.
Fire crews were called to a three-storey apartment building at 3940 Pender Street at 1:06 a.m. for an apartment fire, according to the Burnaby Fire Department.
On arrival, they saw flames and heavy smoke rolling out of a second-storey window.
The first crew to enter the building, Captain Mike Main and firefighter Tommy Robertson, approached the fire suite via the east stairwell, according to deputy fire Chief Darcey O’Riordan.
On their way down the hallway, they came across a woman overcome by smoke.
Robertson carried her out of the building.
“She did not have a pulse, so they did CPR on her and got a pulse back and she actually woke up on scene,” O’Riordan said. “They could have entered the west side just as easily, so it was just very fortunate that they decided to go in the east stairwell. …The fire conditions and the smoke conditions in that hallway, the smoke was banked right down to the floor, so it was definitely not survivable for very long.”
Returning to the burning building, Main and Robertson found another woman inside a smoky second-storey suite and walked her to safety outside.
“I spoke to her after, and what a trooper she was. She was having a cigarette and saying she was fine,” O’Riordan said.
Before firefighters even entered the building, the first crew on scene came upon an older woman who had been injured jumping out of a second-storey balcony to escape the smoke and flames coming from the apartment next to hers.
In all, paramedics checked out five residents, and three – including a man experiencing medical problems – were taken to hospital.
“It was a very dramatic fire, for sure. Incredible teamwork, incredible coordination with all the crews,” O’Riordan said.
Thirty-eight fire department personnel and 11 trucks helped battle the blaze.
The second floor of the building sustained substantial damage, but the third and ground floors were “quite intact” except for water damage, according to the fire department.
The entire building was evacuated, and Burnaby emergency social services personnel were on hand to assist the displaced residents, who were temporarily sheltered from the rain in transit buses.
The cause of the fire is still unknown. Investigators will be on scene today.
