Body found after apartment fire in North Vancouver
Posted July 18, 2016 6:21 am.
Last Updated July 18, 2016 6:19 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
NORTH VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Flames were shooting out of the top floor of an apartment building in North Vancouver this morning. Crews rushed to the building at 2nd Street and St. Patrick’s Avenue at around 5 a.m.
Firefighters initially said the tenant of the apartment was on vacation, but found a body this afternoon. The body has not been identified.
“It [was an] aggressive interior attack to rescue the people. Police helped with that, as well. A couple of people have gone to hospital with smoke inhalation,” says North Vancouver Fire Chief Dan Pistilli.
“There is extensive fire damage to three to four units [and] heavy smoke and water damage to many other units. It will be some time before [residents are] able to enter the building. The power’s cut to the building.”
Pistilli says they’ve narrowed which unit in which the fire started to a couple apartments. However, the fire is not considered suspicious.
All of the people who live in the complex are getting help from Emergency Social Services.
EARLIER:
“It’s a three-storey building with 30 suites in all. The majority of the damage to it is at the back side. Part of the roof is missing on this structure. We’re hearing this is a fire that involved a number of rescues. Firefighters had to grab a bunch of people from their balconies,” says Greg Harper with Breakfast Television on City.
“Everybody I’ve spoken to who lives in the building are saying they didn’t hear a loud bang or anything this morning, but they certainly heard the fire alarm. And then they heard a lot of screaming — people yelling, ‘Get out! Get out! Fire!'” says Harper.
“I woke to a guy honking his horn and a woman screaming,” says Alex, who lives in a neighbouring building. “I looked out my window and I saw the reflection of the fire on [another building]. I came out and we saw a woman on her balcony with her mother, I guess, and their two dogs.”
“[One of the women] climbed down the second floor. The mom was still on the top floor. She was trying to throw her dog off, but we were yelling that the fire trucks were here and they were going to try to let her down. But she still tried to climb down. They got out.”
“There’s a second dog that she was trying to get off the balcony, as well. But we stopped her from doing that,” adds Alex.
He believes both pets made it out okay.
“We tried to get into the third floor to get to her suite. But it was completely smoked out on the third floor, so we couldn’t get in there.”
