WATCH: Family of four loses everything in devastating View Royal fire that may have been deliberately set. Tess van Straaten reports.
Looking at her burnt out mobile home, Sheila Bridger can’t believe it’s all that is left of her life.
“I’ve lost all my memories, I’ve lost my pictures of my children,” a sobbing Sheila Bridger says.
The View Royal grandmother, her husband, and two grandchildren survived a raging fire late Tuesday night at their trailer park on the Songhees Nation after the blaze spread from the mobile home next door.
“I’m pretty devastated,” Bridger says. “When you work all your life to have the possessions that you have and it gets taken away, there are no words.”
Close to 40 firefighters from three different departments were able to stop the blaze from spreading further. But both of the mobile homes were totally destroyed.
“The home that we’ve paid for outright, we’ve been here a year, we’ve just finished doing renovations,” Bridger. “Everything I’ve worked for in my whole life is gone.”
West Shore RCMP and the View Royal and Colwood fire departments are all investigating the fire.
Based on the evidence gathered so far, they’re treating the blaze as suspicious and trying to decide if it was deliberately set.
The woman who lived in the trailer where the fire started declined an interview.
But police are looking at whether her ex-boyfriend may have set the blaze. RCMP now say he’s a person of interest in the investigation.
Bridger’s just thankful her family is alive but says her 16-year-old cat has to be put down.
Insurance will cover some of the damage but Bridger’s been raising her twin grandsons since they were three months old and taking care of her husband, who underwent a quadruple bypass, had a stroke and is legally blind, and doesn’t have any savings.
“I’ve never had to ask for help and it’s very hard,” a Bridger says, unable to hold back tears.
A GoFundMe page has been set up to help the family.
Tess van Straaten
