Victoria Fire responds to apartment fire on Bay Street

CHEK
Victoria Fire and Police responded to an apartment fire on Bay Street this morning. (Submitted photo/Cassie Holcomb)

The Victoria Fire Department was called to respond to an apartment fire this morning on Bay Street.

Cassie Holcomb lives on the fourth floor of the building at 55 Bay Street and tells CHEK News the fire was on the third floor.

“I live on the fourth floor and our fire alarm went off,” Holcomb said, noting this happened around 5 a.m. “I grabbed my glasses, my keys my cell and my computer and was out. And when I got up to the parking lot, people were actually yelling at other people to get out of the building.”

Holcomb noted the fire alarm has previously been set off accidentally, so people had gone out onto their balconies to see if they needed to evacuate.

She says the fire was on a balcony on the third floor, and fire and police arrived about five minutes after she had gotten out of the building.

“It looks like it was mostly contained to the balcony,” Halcomb said. “The fire department was awesome. They were on scene within minutes for us and had it out pretty quickly.”

Halcomb says they were allowed back into the building between 6:30 and 7.

“It seemed like there was fairly little damage. I could definitely smell smoke in the building,” Halcomb said. “I have a fire door right before my apartment, and my neighbour is on the other side of it, and he said his apartment was super smoky. Mine was not bad actually I’m very happy that I have that fire door and the firewall.”

Halcomb says she is very grateful to the firefighters and police officers who arrived, as well as a couple who was delivering newspapers who called 911 when they saw the fire.

“A couple came over to me and they said that they were delivering papers and they saw the smoke and they called the fire department,” Halcomb said. “Big thank you to them. And a big thank you to Victoria Fire and Victoria Police for being there so quickly and responding so early in the morning. It was awesome. I’m very grateful to be able to have an apartment to go back to.”

Victoria Police says the cause of the fire is not suspicious, and there were no injuries.

CHEK News has reached out to Victoria Fire for more information.

This is a developing story. More information will be added as details become available.

(Submitted photo/Cassie Holcomb)(Submitted photo/Cassie Holcomb)

Laura Brougham

Recent Stories

Send us your news tips and videos!