Vancouver property owners plead for information after duplex burned to the ground

A group of lifelong friends who invested in a property in an effort to enter the competitive Vancouver real estate market, are pleading with the public for information after it was burnt down.

The owners have shared surveillance video from the night of the fire with CTV News, hoping to help further the investigation and to get some answers about what happened and why.

On Dec. 16, 2022 at around 9 p.m., home security surveillance video recorded a vehicle slowly driving in the alley of the duplex on Argyle Street. Next, it shows a person dressed in black entering the property through the back gate carrying what appears to be an orange gasoline canister.

At one point in the video, the man seems to get spooked and decides to hide. Eventually, he can be seen throwing the canister, kneeling down amid a flash of bright light.

Moments later, he grabs the can and sprints away as the home is engulfed in flames.

Firefighters would be called to the property for a third-alarm blaze that completely destroyed the under-construction property and damaged two adjacent homes so significantly that the residents were displaced.

At the time, the blaze was described as "suspicious" by authorities.

“It was horrible,” said Graydon Galloway, one of the owners. “I’m a new dad as well so it was my first night out. Just as the show was starting, I got a message with pictures from a friend saying the property’s been burnt down.”

What was supposed to be a way into the real estate market for the five friends who invested in the property, has now turned into an expensive and upsetting ordeal. No one was living in the duplex at the time.

Galloway says his neighbours – who will be displaced for months -- are lucky to be alive after escaping the fast-moving fire.

“The heat burned so intensely and so quickly that it was shattering windows in and around (the) kids. If they were all asleep, it’s possible that they could have been killed,” he added.

The high school teacher said he and his friends plan to rebuild on the lot, but have been left shaken and fear that whoever seemingly set the fire could return