Victim jumps from balcony to flee fire at Burnaby Motel, multiple people hospitalized

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — An overnight fire at a motel in Burnaby forced guests out into the below-freezing temperatures, with multiple people taken to hospital, one of whom jumped from a second-floor balcony for safety.

A suite at the 401 Inn at the corner of Grandview Highway and Boundary Road erupted into flames around 2 a.m. Saturday.

Stewart Colbourne with the Burnaby Fire Department says crews arrived to the scene to find some people stuck on the motel balconies.

“Crews arrived on scene and it was a confirmed building fire and immediately went into rescue mode,” he explains.

Multiple people were taken to hospital, including one who threw themselves off a second-floor balcony to escape the smoke and flames.

“One of the biggest tasks that we have is to get make sure that we get everybody out safely and I believe that was what occurred.”

NEWS 1130 listener, Johanna, was inside the motel when she and her boyfriend suddenly smelled smoke, forcing people to rush out of the building into the frigid air.

“There’s no smoke alarms, there is no sprinklers,” she claims. “The place was engulfed. And so I ended up kicking in the employee’s doors. We found five fire extinguishers all were expired.”

Johanna says she feels lucky she was able to escape the blaze.

“This is tragic,” she says. “The only thing the first responders could do was bring a bus to keep these people warm until they found somewhere to go.”

She says she was among those who helped multiple people get to safety.

Initial indications are the fire erupted in a suite, but Burnaby Fire says it’s too early to say what set-off the potentially deadly blaze.

“While the fire was contained to one suite, there is water and smoke damage in other parts of the hotel,” Colbourne adds.

The fire is not being considered suspicious at this time.

However, the RCMP have secured the scene and will be investigating.

Colbourne says it’s too early to say whether fire extinguishers at the site may have been expired, or if smoke alarms and sprinklers were activated properly.

“All those things would be looked at in an investigation for the cause and what worked and what didn’t work,” he says.

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