While no one was injured, a Nanaimo resident says her parents’ ashes were inside the house at the time of the fire.
Shareen Buck, whose sister lives in the house at the corner of Bowen and Latimer roads, says she was at work when she started getting messages about the fire.
“I was at work and I started getting a bunch of messages, and then after I was done, I looked and I had like six different people messaging me with pictures of the house burnt out and gone,” Buck said. “My mom’s and dad’s ashes were in there. My sister and her boyfriend and I don’t know how many other people were in the house because they accommodated a bunch of people inside.”
Buck says before her mom died, her mom and sister were living at the home together then they got an eviction notice for the owners to move in. They were waiting to hear from arbitration before moving out.
“Both her and her boyfriend, they were paying rent here before when my mom was alive, and then they all got eviction notices to move out because the owners were going to take over the house,” Buck said.
“And then my mom passed and my sister fought with arbitration and she got to stay an extra couple of months because they didn’t give her notice properly, but after that she was supposed to be out.”
Buck says her sister was supposed to move out in July or August.
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David Dales, assistant fire chief with Nanaimo Fire Rescue says the fire was called in around 3 a.m.
“When our first engine arrived, the company officer was exposed to extreme flame coming out of all the windows,” Dales said. “They were quickly able to capture the hydrant which is right on the front lawn and they were able to quickly knock down the house fire.”
He says the crews on scene were able to quickly determine there were no residents or pets inside the building, so they started tackling it from the outside.
The fire was driven by high winds at the time, according to Dales.
Shireen Buck, who lives in the house, says she was at work at the time of the fire.
“I was at work and I started getting a bunch of messages, and then after I was done, I looked and I had like six different people messaging me with pictures of the house burnt out and gone,” Buck said. “My mom’s and dad’s ashes were in there. My sister and her boyfriend and I don’t know how many other people were in the house because they accommodated a bunch of people inside.”
In a tweet, Nanaimo Fire Rescue says Bowen Road needed to be closed in order for firefighters to tackle the house fire.
Some dramatic footage from our first on scene company officer. No residents and or pets were injured. pic.twitter.com/zBRdvdUm3X
— Nanaimo Fire Rescue (@NanaimoFire) December 29, 2022
-With files from CHEK’s Dean Stoltz
Laura Brougham
