East Vancouver home destroyed by fire

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – Smoke was billowing from a home on fire in East Vancouver early Friday morning.

Crews raced to the two-alarm blaze on E. 43rd Ave. near Earles Street at about 5:30 a.m. Nearly a dozen trucks, vans, and emergency crews packed streets in the area.

When firefighters arrived, the flames were through the roof.

The home has been destroyed. The fire appears to have started at the back of the home, but damage extends around to the front door.

The owner of the home, a single woman, got out safely. She said doesn’t have insurance and has been thinking about selling the house.

Aida Rekik lives next door with her two kids. She says another neighbour woke her up and they scrambled to get out. The three got out okay.

“She’s knocking on the door, screaming, ‘It’s a fire! It’s a fire!'” she told NEWS 1130. “I could see the fire … then I ran out to my kids and said, ‘Wake up! Out, out out!”

“I was shaking,” she said, calling the ordeal a nightmare.

“I thought we were going to die. I was super-scared,” her 10-year-old daughter Lina said.

Aida calls her neighbours “angels” for looking out for and taking care of them. “We came over, and they said, ‘Come on in’ [and offered] tea.”

The fire damaged their house, bursting their kitchen window.

“It’s completely broken. The blinds, completely damaged … even the wall, you can see it’s burnt,” she said.

There’s no word yet on how the fire started.

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