Fire crews are investigating after a series of overnight fires destroyed two homes and a shed in Maple Ridge.
Flames first broke out at 3 a.m. at one house near Lougheed Highway at 220th St.
The fire then spread through a hedge between the two houses and soon both homes were burning.
Crews called it an ‘all-hands’ kind of event -- a very stubborn fire to fight.
Both homes were abandoned and one had signs of a marijuana grow-op inside.
Neighbour Sarah Pagada was woken up at 3 a.m. when police banged on her door and told her to get out in case the fire spread further.
“I woke up my kids. I was wearing shorts and my husband said ‘you can’t leave like that,’” she said.
That was the third fire of the night in the area.
Around midnight, some debris was set on fire about a block away. And about 20 minutes later at another home a shed went up in flames.
Crews are reluctant to say if there is a fire bug at work.
“We’ve got three suspicious fires all very close together,” said Dane Spence of the Maple Ridge Fire Dept.
Lougheed Highway was closed until around 6 a.m. as crews extinguished the fires.
