When Nancy Coverdale heard the smoke alarm, she assumed the source was something inside her unit of Whistler’s Northstar townhouse complex.

“I decided to come out here and look, and when I did, you could see the fire going up the building,” Coverdale said.

She ran back inside, knocking on doors to make sure everyone in her building - across from the one partially engulfed in flames - got out safely, in case the fire spread.

“When it got to the second unit, over here to the right, it just took off,” Coverdale said. “That was the scary part, because we were afraid it was going to leap over and get into these other units.”

The fire broke out around 11 p.m. Saturday night, in building A of the development. The three-storey building suffered fire damage on the upper floor, and units on the lower floors were damaged by smoke and water.

Whistler Fire Chief Geoff Playfair said the fire was challenging to put out because of the part of the building in which it took place.

“Any time we’ve got a fire in a peaked roof, it’s problematic to access,” Playfair said.

No one was injured, but several people were forced out of their units by the blaze, forced to stay in hotels or with friends.

Sarah Pratt and her family - on vacation this week from Seattle - were among those displaced. She said she didn’t initially think it was a real fire, but a neighbour went to check it out and confirmed the danger.

Brianna McDonald had a similar experience.

“He came running back about 30 seconds later and said ‘Get the kids, get everyone, and get out now,’” McDonald said. “We went outside and flames were shooting up about 20 feet into the air.”

Those forced out by the fire were eventually allowed back in to claim their belongings. Pratt said her family was lucky that their things suffered minimal damage. People in other parts of the building were much less fortunate, she said.

“I’m just so thankful that everyone got out, and everyone was safe,” she said. “You know, that’s really all that matters. If things are damaged, that’s fine, you can fix that later.”

Early Sunday afternoon, the building was completely fenced off, with restoration crews already on site evaluating the damage. Playfair was unable to provide an estimate of the value of the property that was destroyed. He said the cause of the fire is still being investigated, but there’s no reason to believe the fire is suspicious.

With files from CTV Vancouver’s Ben Miljure