2 early morning Vancouver fires destroy restaurant, evacuate hotel

Two separate fires broke out early Saturday morning just one hour apart in Vancouver, destroying a restaurant and causing a hotel to evacuate.

The call for the first fire came in at 4:42 a.m. from a restaurant near 32nd Avenue and Main Street. The building suffered extensive damage and the roof caved in, Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services Assistant Chief Ken Gemmill told CTV News.

Nobody was inside the restaurant at the time of the blaze, so there were no injuries, he said. The adjoining buildings received smoke damage, but the fire did not spread to them.

The second fire started one hour later, just after 5:20 a.m., in a dumpster outside the Sandman Hotel on West Georgia Street downtown. The flames spread on the outside of the building but were knocked down before any got inside, Gemmill said.

There was heavy smoke on the second and third floor of the hotel, and 150 people were forced to evacuate for two hours. They have since been let back inside.

Gemmill said the two fires cut the city’s fire rescue resources short for a few hours, leaving chiefs scrambling.

There is no word on the cause of either fire.