Suspicious fire destroys Strathcona house that fire officials say had 'transient' occupants

A fire broke out on Friday, July 16, 2021 at a house on Prior Street in the Strathcona neighbourhood of Vancouver. (Twitter/Chief Karen Fry)

Vancouver -

A third-alarm fire destroyed a house in Vancouver’s Strathcona neighbourhood on Friday night, and fire officials say they believe everybody made it out.

The house is located on Prior Street, between Princess Avenue and Jackson Avenue, and the call came in to Vancouver Fire Rescue Service at 11:47 p.m.

“The original report was that everybody was out,” said Dan Nichols, assistant chief of operations for VFRS.

The fire was so intense that by the time crews arrived on scene it wasn’t safe for any firefighters to go inside and look for people.

Nichols said there was no list of who lived at the house, and that the fire has been deemed suspicious and the scene has been handed over to the Vancouver Police Department.

“There’s transient people that were going to the house, so there’s people in the place that – some of the people that were in there don’t even know their names,” he said.

“But I think we’re going down the path that there was nobody in there,” Nichols said.

“We haven’t even been inside the building yet, it was a defensive fire right from the very start,” he said, meaning that firefighters were not permitted to enter and that the goal was to put the fire out while making sure it didn’t spread to other houses.

Nichols said there were “hoarding issues” in the front and back yards of the house, which led officials to believe that “chances are it’s the same inside.”

“With the hoarding issues, it was more dangerous for (the firefighters),” he said.

CTV News Vancouver has reached out to the Vancouver Police Department for information about its investigation.