1 dog, 3 cats missing after North Vancouver home goes up in flames
Posted September 9, 2018 7:38 pm.
Last Updated September 9, 2018 7:44 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
NORTH VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – An early afternoon fire in a residential area of the City of North Vancouver has destroyed a family home.
Fire crews received reports of heavy smoke coming from the area of Mahon Avenue and 20th street at around 12:40 Sunday afternoon.
They arrived to find a house fully ablaze. Both residents were away at the time, but a dog and three cats remain unaccounted for.
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“There’s major damage to the house, major structural damage to the house, so we’ve deemed the house unhabitable,” said City of North Vancouver Fire Chief Dan Pistilli.
Due to the number of things inside the home, he said his team had trouble getting inside.
“Due to the amount of contents in and around the property inside the residence it was difficult to enter,” he said. “So we had to go to a defensive strategy and fight the fire from the outside.”
It was about three hours before firefighters were able to contain the fire due to the number of things inside the home.
“There was a lot of debris, an accumulation of tools, and wood, and everything you can imagine so it was unsafe for the crews to enter,” Pistilli said.
By the time crews were able to get the flames under control the structure had been destroyed, but Pistilli says no other homes in the area were affected.
“We had to protect the exposures on both side of the house we were worried about fire extending from the one house of origin to the next.”
Due to the extent of the damage both the District of North Vancouver assisted crews. At one point there were 35 firefighters on scene.
