A man is missing and three houses have been destroyed after fire ripped through a residential neighbourhood in Cumberland early Saturday.
Bill Walters woke up about 3 a.m. Through his window, he could see flames ripping through a two-storey home on Penrith Avenue. As the flames quickly spread to the homes on either side, Walters woke up his wife to tell her things looked serious.
“It was totally engulfed. You couldn’t even tell it was a house, it was one big fire ball,” said Walters, whose home is across the street. “I could feel the heat from the fire through the window.”
Dozens of firefighters from Cumberland Fire Rescue and Courtenay Fire tackled the blaze from the street and from an alley behind the homes.
With his 15-year-old grandson and 14-year-old foster son by his side, Walters stood on the street and watched the firefighters attempt to knock back the scorching flames.
“It was surreal seeing that. I’ve never seen anything like that,” he said.
Walters could hear car tires popping from the heat. Eventually, the home in the middle collapsed.
“The Cumberland Fire Department did an absolutely incredible job containing the fire and preventing it from spreading further,” he said.
The man who lives in the house where the fire started is missing. A mother and her son were able to escape from one of the neighbouring homes that caught fire, and no one was home at the third house.
By daybreak on Saturday, the home where the fire originated was reduced to charred rubble. An excavator picked through the debris in search of the resident.
Walters said the man who lives there is in his 70s. “He was always smiling when I saw him,” he said.
The residents displaced by the fire will be offered Emergency Social Services.
Most of the wood-frame homes on the street are more than 100 years old, Walters said. Many century-old homes have a “balloon frame” construction, which allows fire to spread quickly to the upper floors.
Penrith Avenue is one street away from the town’s main strip on Dunsmuir Avenue, and the three homes are close to the town’s post office, so the damage will be visible to everyone in town, said Walters, who has lived in Cumberland for seven years. The village has a population of about 3,700, according to the latest census.
“Everyone is in total shock,” he said. “It really affects a small community like this.”
