An early-evening apartment fire burned about 40 Nanaimo residents out of their homes on Sunday.
Firefighters say many of those displaced by a fire in a couch are lucky to have escaped unharmed and say it could have ended differently if not for the actions of other tenants who helped guide them to safety.
Nanaimo Fire Rescue emergency responders first arrived on scene at St. George Manor within five minutes of the call, which came in at 6:07 p.m. Sunday.
They got there to find the top two floors of a four-storey walk-up apartment engulfed in smoke, with flames licking out of an upstairs window. A fire partition in the building kept much of the smoke from entering the north section of the building.
It isn't known what ignited the couch, which had been left on a landing in a stairwell between the third and fourth floor.
RCMP have already been brought in to help investigate.
"Anything we find suspicious, it's easier — to have an unbroken chain of evidence — to get them in early, then it's not an issue with continuity," said Martin Drakeley, chief of operations.
"We've had about 40 people affected, including 27 adults and five children took advantage of our emergency social services program. Another 10 or 12 individuals chose to stay with family or friends. The majority on the third and fourth floor were evacuated."
Joan Keller, a third-floor resident on the north end of the building, returned home at about 8:45 p.m. to find firefighters and residents in the street outside.
She decided to leave for a while, then come back once the excitement was over. She's still able to live in her apartment, since a fire door divides the building in half. "Other than the smell of smoke, it's fine," Keller said. "You could smell it in the hallways. It was quite severe."
Firefighters had the blaze under control in 20 minutes, but "the thing that stopped further loss, or injury, residents were able to help each other get out," Drakeley said.
The burning couch was in a stairwell, and many residents were unaware of a second escape route, through another stairwell. "Had people not (helped), it could have been much worse," Drakeley said.
"They assisted our evacuation operation by helping before we had a chance to extinguish the fire, so it went well."
The fire served as a reminder to apartment-dwellers to heed every smoke alarm.
"Living in an apartment building, alarms go all the time, and nine out of 10 times it's nothing. This is the 10th one. It's better to evacuate the building, because of these situations."
Keller said the building manager does his job and "keeps things under control."
