Two rooms on the second floor have significant fire damage and two rooms below them have smoke and water damage after a fire broke out early Wednesday morning at Parkside Resort Motel.
The Prince Rupert Fire Department responded to a call at 1:55 a.m. Wednesday morning and upon arriving, found a unit on the top floor on fire. No injuries were sustained.
“Me and my husband couldn’t sleep, so we were talking and I hear a ‘pop pop’ sound,” said motel owner Teresa Lee Wednesday morning.
“So I opened the window – we live upstairs and I saw one guy on the balcony and a bunch of smoke started coming out so I knew it was fire. I told my husband to grab a fire extinguisher and put it out and I called 9-1-1.
“The fire department came really quick.”
Lee said that the units were being used at the time and everyone made it out in time. The fire caught to the neighbouring apartment, and Lee was able to knock on the doors and evacuate everyone from the building.
“We relocated them to different motels,” Lee said.
Fire Chief Dave Mckenzie confirmed that four units had been directly affected by the fire. Lee said that other units may have minor smoke damage. The cause is still to be determined, said the chief.
“Nobody was in the room at the time when we were dealing with the fire,” Mckenzie said. “[The department] will do continuous monitoring for today and look for hot spots, and make sure it stays cold and continue the investigation.”
