Quick action from the Campbell River Fire Department saved a home from burning down on Tuesday night.
Crews responded to a call for a structure fire on Birch Street at around 5:15 p.m. A two-storey home had smoke coming from the back side, where firefighters discovered a fire on the back deck that had spread to the wall of the home.
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“It was close to downtown station, so we were there quite quickly,” said fire chief Thomas Doherty. “We were on scene within 3 minutes and 30 seconds from the time we got the call. We deployed an attack line quickly to the back deck, opened up the wall and caught it from spreading up into the roof and attic space.”
Nobody was inside the unit at the time, and neighbours and tenants from a separate suite were trying to extinguish the fire when crews arrived.
“A couple of the folks that were trying to extinguish the fire there got a bit of smoke inhalation, so B.C. Ambulance took them in for assessment,” Doherty said.
The cause of the fire was some discarded smoking material on the back deck. In all, the home had some structural damage and there was damage to the wiring. The tenants of the three units in the home have been displaced until repairs are made.
“We had to isolate the power to the house because it got into some electrical wiring as well,” Doherty said. “We did notify ESS, Emergency Support Services, to look after the folks that were displaced.”
He added that no working smoke alarms were found in the building, and crews installed “a number of smoke alarms so they at least had some protection.”
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