An East Vancouver woman is lucky to be alive after fire rapidly tore through her home – one the city’s hoarding task force had already visited several times.
Neighbours of the home at 3439 Fleming Street said they woke to the sound of a woman screaming at around 6 a.m. Friday morning.
“It sounded like somebody attacked a woman,” one man told CTV News. “When I come out, I saw the big flames, and the firefighters preparing the hose and everything.”
Fire officials said the homeowner made a mistake in not getting out of the house right away – instead trying to deal with the blaze herself.
“What she did was she went, she grabbed a bucket of water, and she tried to put the fire out herself,” said Vancouver Fire Rescue Capt. Gabe Roder.
The fire quickly spread, and her exit became blocked by flames. She had to break a window to get to her balcony, where crews rescued her.
The woman suffered minor cuts and bruises, but Roder said she was lucky to escape without serious injuries.
Investigators said an electrical problem probably sparked the blaze – but additional crews had to be called in to extinguish it because of the home’s hoarder-like conditions.
“Some people might call it hoarding, and that also made it a lot more difficult to fight this fire,” Roder said. “Not only can you not see where you’re going, but you can’t get to where you want to get to.”
Crews are still taking stock of the damage and said the woman is now living with relatives.
The home had already been identified as a possible fire hazard back in February.
Neighbours reported excessive clutter and the city’s hoarding task force visited the home several times, according to Coun. Kerry Jang.
They said the home had no working fire alarms and staff even offered to install them – but the woman flat out refused.
“She was quite abusive and threatening, and a couple of times Vancouver police had to attend [with] our city inspection and fire and rescue services staff for safety,” Jang said.
He said as a last resort, the city was prepared to enter the home and forcibly clean it out, but it didn’t get done fast enough.
“We normally don’t see this type of case in the city,” he said, adding 80 per cent of hoarding cases in Vancouver are resolved within a year. “Unfortunately, this is what happens when you have untreated mental health issues in our community,”
The Hoarding Action Response Team is the only one of its kind in North American and unites inspection staff, fire and rescue officials and mental health workers to deal with hoarders.
With reports from CTV British Columbia's Nafeesa Karim and Norma Reid
