Abby Jose was woken partially awake Friday morning by a puzzling sound — something he said could be attributed to wind or even snow outside his rental house on Doncaster Drive.
At the same time, Nick Lacourcière was driving to work to repair a chimney on Megaw Place – the street behind Doncaster – when he noticed smoke and drove straight to the scene.
He phoned his CBS Masonry colleague Scott Clark, who was already at Megaw Place, to warn him. “I just jumped in my truck and burned out there,” said Clark, who grabbed a neighbor’s hose to try to fight the fire.
It was about 8 a.m. when Lacourcière and another man, who was passing by, found the front door of the burning house unlocked and went inside to warn of a fire.
Jose, 25, heard them shouting and met them in the hallway, making it to safety without injury.
“We just went to every single door to try to open every door. There was a locked door and we were banging on it,” Lacourcière said.
It turned out that Jose was the only one of the five renters in the house at the time. His bedroom is on the second floor of the building with a terrace in front. The fire burned the exterior of the house near the balcony.
Clark said, “As soon as the vinyl siding started burning, the flames got pretty intense in the front of the house.”
The Saanich Fire Department arrived quickly on the scene to extinguish the fire, which had moved into the attic. Saanich Emergency Services arrived to provide lodging for tenants for several days if needed, as well as food and other supplies.
Tenant Adrienne Sellors of Winnipeg said none of the tenants had rental insurance on their property. The Ottawa-based homeowner has been notified, she said.
Only one tenant has family in the area.
Selors is staying with friends in Sooke. She was at work when she learned of the fire, booking in for the day, only to return home to find belongings in her second-floor room damaged by water.
Jose’s room now has no roof, Sellors said. Jose said his property had smoke and water damage.
Tenant Daniel Froese, 22, has a lot of family in the area. What happened “hasn’t fully happened yet,” he said.
He received a text message about the fire, and as he was driving home, he saw smoke in the distance and could smell it as he reached McCrae Avenue.
“I just ran from there to here. By the time I got here it looked a lot worse – so much more smoke.”
Saanich Deputy Chief Michael Kay said an investigator is looking into the fire. The cause is unknown at this time, but it does not appear suspicious.
The fire appears to have started on the balcony, moved up the siding and into the roof joists, he said.
Smoke alarms in the house went off when the fire moved inside the building, he said.
As for the men who went into the house to warn people, Kay said it’s not recommended to go into a fire without protective clothing, but at that point the fire was completely outside, so they were able to stay safe.
cjwilson@timescolonist.com
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