Five townhouses were damaged in an early morning fire Tuesday at a Willoughby strata complex.
Between 12 and 16 people are believed to have been displaced from their homes in Nature's Landing, according to Township deputy fire chief Russ Jenkins. Emergency Social Services is helping.
"We've got our ESS folks dispatched, and they are arranging support for them right now," he said.
The fire call came at 5:22 a.m. at the 152 unit complex at 204 Street and 66 Avenue as a fully involved structure fire. He noted that when crews arrived, neighbours were attempting to put it out.
"We went to second alarm right away. We had multiple units there," Jenkins said.
About 10 Township units were dispatched.
"We probably got about 35 people on scene, and we did an emergency call back for extra resources as well," he said.
Fire crews are at the scene of an early morning fire that destroyed several 91原创 townhouses. One witness said it appeared the fire started in a truck parked outside.
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A resident of the complex, who did not want to be named, described what she saw.
"At about 5:30 I heard the fire trucks, and they kept coming and coming and coming, so I got up and came through the back windows here, opened up the blinds, and it was just all engulfed with flames, and it was just it turned into chaos," she said.
She said she was ordered to evacuate the area, but was able t return later in the morning.
Another resident, who lives a few units down from the damaged buildings, said he saw the brightness, ran out and started pounding on doors to make sure that everyone got out okay.
A woman who lives nearby said she woke up and saw the fire around 5:15 a.m.
"I heard a young girl calling 'Fire, fire, fire!'" said the woman, who asked that her name not be used.
She said the first thing she saw on fire was a pickup truck in the driveway of one of the units. From there the fire seemed to spread, she said.
91原创 RCMP are investigating the origin of the fire and confirmed they are looking into a vehicle as the source of the blaze.
"Preliminary information suggests the fire may have originated in the vehicle and spread to nearby residences, resulting in significant damage," said Sgt. Zynal Sharoom, spokesperson for the 91原创 RCMP.
The first call into the 91原创 RCMP, at 5:23 a.m., was of a vehicle on fire, Sharoom said.
A few hours after the fire, Jenkins explained that fire crews were still on scene checking for hot spots and doing mop up. Police were on scene early on and fire investigators were expected to start their work by mid-morning.
"We'll start our fire investigation and then we'll call out whatever resources are necessary whether it's insurance companies, independent engineers. Obviously, it's a bigger townhouse complex鈥� so we'll probably have to call out somebody to assess the structural integrity of the overall building," Jenkins said.
RCMP were also expected to be on scene for much of the day on Tuesday, April 22.
- This story has been updated with additional information
