A Burnaby couple expecting their first child in just weeks has lost everything in a recent house fire – and they don’t have insurance.

On the afternoon of Nov. 24, Kristen Sundevic - who is eight months pregnant - was packing her hospital bag for the upcoming delivery when she noticed the suite next door in their Halifax Street duplex was on fire.

“The windows had smashed and flames were coming out,” she told CTV News. “I ran back in our suite and grabbed our cat and dog and called 911…[The fire] moved very fast.” 

Sundevic managed to get out safely with the cat and dog, as well as with many of the roughly 20 reptiles she and her husband Nathan Sundevic have rescued from unwanted homes.

Fire officials still aren’t sure how the blaze began, and say it was a tricky fire to get a handle on.

“It was a very fast moving fire,” says Assistant Burnaby Fire Chief Dave Graystone. “When we arrived, within five minutes it was already affecting the house next door. It had broken one of the windows.”

The man from the suite where the fires started was taken to the hospital with bad burns. Sundevic, who suffers from seizures caused by PTSD, also ended up in the hospital.

“I had two seizures the night of the fire, but both the baby and I are okay,” she said. “We’re really grateful.”

The couple had moved from their small downtown Vancouver apartment to a larger home in August, to make room for their growing family. The nursery had been completely set up – but everything they owned was damaged or destroyed in the fire.

“There was a fine layer of soot on everything in that side and that will contaminate everything,” says Graystone. “The soot is very carcinogenic and you wouldn't want to use it without proper cleaning.”

“They told us that the restoration to have things cleaned would be more expensive than buying things new,” adds Sundevic.

To complicatematters, the young family was still settling in to their new home and hadn’t filled out their insurance papers.

“There’s not much we can do,” Sundevic says. “We’re trying to find a new place to live, and start to accumulate some necessities and keep building from there.”

This isn’t the first obstacle the pair has faced so far. Kristen was diagnosed with cervical cancer last year and is now in remission. It was also very challenging for the couple to conceive.

“We call him our miracle baby,” Sundevic says. “We've waited a really long time - it took us 52 months of trying to conceive. So we're really grateful and blessed.”

With the holiday season fast approaching, friends and family have set up a fundraising page  to help the couple start over. Along with the cash, the pair is hoping for donations such as a bassinet, cloth diapers, and baby clothes.

“If anyone is able to help us out we really are grateful for anything,” says Sundevic. “We're happy that we're alive and safe, and just trying to focus on the positive.”

With files from CTV Vancouver’s Alex Turner