North Vancouver firefighters douse fire in Woodcroft apartment complex

District of North Vancouver firefighters were called to a scene of smoke pouring from a third-floor apartment fire in North Vancouver’s Woodcroft apartment towers early Wednesday morning.

But many residents in the highrise apartment tower, who were sleeping at the time, remained unaware of the fire in their building – thanks to fire regulations that don’t require the same kinds of smoke detectors or automated smoke alarms that new buildings must have.

Firefighters raced to the scene in the early-morning hours of April 27 after receiving multiple 911 calls about a fire that had broken out in one suite on the third floor.

The first fire crews arrived to find “a large volume of smoke” pouring from the apartment. A lone occupant of the apartment was in the process of evacuating, said Chief Brian Hutchinson of District of North Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services.

Fire appeared connected to cooking

The fire appeared to have started with cooking in a kitchen area, said Hutchinson, although investigation into the exact cause is ongoing. The unit was smoke damaged but, fortunately, the fire didn't spread to nearby apartments, he said.

Hutchinson added firefighters were able to quickly get in and douse the blaze without having to evacuate other residents.

One of those residents told the North Shore News it was unnerving to realize no alarm had alerted him to potential danger.

The resident said he only learned of the fire after he and his partner were awakened by the sounds of fire crews outside at about 3:30 a.m. and went out to investigate.

“I think most people slept through it,” he said.

Older buildings don't have to meet current fire code

Under current laws, older apartment buildings like the Woodcroft are only required to meet the fire code that was in place when they were built, said Hutchinson. In this case, that means there are no smoke detectors in common hallways and a fire detected in one unit won’t automatically set off a general fire alarm for the building. That only happens when someone manually pulls a fire alarm, he said. In this case, nobody did.

The Woodcroft complex of several apartment towers, of up to 20 storeys, was built in the early 1970s.

Fire code requirements of any apartment building constructed today are far more stringent.

In 2018, a mother and son died in a fire that swept through the Mountain Village Garden Apartments in Lynn Valley’s Whiteley Court. Fifteen people were sent to hospital and 14 families were left temporarily homeless by that fire. Fire investigators ruled the cause as undetermined.

Fire investigators also weren’t able to determine if smoke alarms in the apartment where the mother and son lived were functioning that night.

Because the apartment complex had been built before 1979, the building code allowed smoke alarms in the complex to be battery-operated, rather than wired into the electrical circuits of the building. Multi-family apartments built after 1979 must have smoke detectors permanently wired into the building.

“They were meeting the code of the day,” said Hutchinson of the Mountain Village fire.

The situation also comes shortly after a fire ignited by an unattended candle destroyed the Winters Hotel SRO in Vancouver’s Gastown neighbourhood, killing two residents.

Apartment buildings are inspected annually to make sure they are meeting requirements, said Hutchinson. But those requirements vary, depending on the age of the building.

Installing alarms, fire extinguishers a good idea

Hutchinson said it’s always a good idea for residents to ensure they have a working smoke detector in their apartment – regardless of whether that is legally required – along with a carbon monoxide detector and fire extinguisher.

“If they’re not part of the building’s infrastructure, residents would be well advised to install them,” he said.