VANCOUVER -- By 9 a.m. on Saturday, Surrey Fire Service had already responded to three separate 911 calls for fire trucks.
The first came just after midnight for a home near 128th Street and 100th Avenue.
“On arrival the flames were venting out of the living room and it was fully involved,” said Reo Jerome, battalion chief, “both residents were sleeping in the home and were awoken by smoke alarms.”
Fire crews told CTV News Vancouver that a father and son had been sleeping inside when the son heard the upstairs fire alarms go off.
“One resident did have slight, minor, first degree burns to their hands that were looked at by BC ambulance and they did not have to go to the hospital,” said Jerome, but that was it.
“The smoke alarms saved their lives tonight,” he said.
It was a two alarm call, meaning 20 firefighters, and 10 trucks showed up, and it wasn’t the last that morning.
Shortly before 8 a.m. a call came for a fire near 191st Street and 72A Avenue. A plume of smoke could be seen from down the street as flames swallowed a shed, threatening nearby homes and a garage.
“We heard a ba-boom,” said Berkley MacDonald who lives nearby.
“I looked out the window to see if it was a car accident or something and I seen just a bunch of smoke coming.”
He quickly called 911 and the fire was upgraded again to a second alarm.
“It didn’t take long for it to really catch fire and it went off like a bat out of hell,” MacDonald said.
“I was going to go over with the garden hose and then I was like ‘Nah, I’m going to leave this for the big boys.’”
Officials said there were no injuries.
“The shed is what caught on fire and it was a total loss,” said Steve Serbic, assistant chief of operations with Surrey Fire.
Then just minutes later the third call came in at 8:15 a.m., near 133rd Street and 100th avenue.
Crews arrived to find a shed on fire and quickly knocked it down. Officials say that all three fires are under investigation and the RCMP is working with fire investigators. None of the fires appear to be linked.
“This is a good reminder for people to make sure your smoke detectors are working,” said Serbic.
“No injuries in any of those fires, so it was a good day.”