Six people have been displaced after a house above a restaurant in Vancouver’s Mount Pleasant neighbourhood caught fire Wednesday night.
Assistant Fire Chief Arnie Groenewegen says crews were called to 8th Avenue near Main Street in Vancouver around 8:15 p.m., where a bedroom on the third floor of the building was burning.
Images from the scene show flames billowing out of one of the windows shortly after the Vancouver Fire Rescue Service arrived.
With the house divided into several suites, Groenewegen says, responding firefighters had some trouble reaching the top floor, but put it out as quickly as possible.
He says everyone, including those in the Italian restaurant below, all made it out safely.
Ignacio Arrieta only opened Osteria Otto in December, and says he’s grateful everyone made it out unhurt. But after the water and smoke damage, says it’s likely the end for the old building.
“Now we just have a flooded restaurant,” said Arrieta.
“I think it’s gone.”
Groenewegen says evidence shows the fire could have sparked from an electric blanket, but the investigation remains open.