Nine people are homeless after an early-morning fire destroyed a building in Surrey Monday.
“The residents, most of them will probably be displaced for quite a while,” Surrey fire chief Kevin Beenham told CTV News.
The blaze broke out at a fourplex on 128 Street near 103 Avenue shortly before 5 a.m.
A woman was taken to hospital for smoke inhalation, but no one was seriously injured in the fire.
Some residents, however, say they barely made it out of the burning building.
The fire started in the back of the home and spread, cutting off Esther Walls’ entrance and trapping her inside her unit. She had to break a window to get out.
“Everything I own is gone,” Walls said.
Walls and other residents, most of whom left with only clothes they were wearing, are now trying to salvage anything they can and hoping that their beloved pets survived the fire.
Crews knocked down the blaze quickly. First responders say the damage could have been minimized if people had noticed the flames sooner, but the fire detectors in the units weren’t working.
Officials say some of the residents first thought they were smelling smoke from the wildfires and didn’t react as quickly as they could have.
“Especially with the conditions due to the wildfires, people downplay the smells and working smoke detectors do save lives,” Beenham said.
The fourplex’s landlord refused to speak to CTV News about the smoke detectors.
With files from CTV Vancouver’s Breanna Karstens-Smith
