A mother and her young son are dead after an overnight fire seared through a two-storey apartment complex in Lynn Valley.
Neighbour Jean McCreesh described the blaze that ripped through the Mountain Village Garden Apartments complex on Whiteley Court at 2:30 a.m. Monday morning as a “big, churning ball of fire.”
“By 2:40 a.m. it was like looking at hell,” she said.
Several neighbours recounted hearing an explosion and seeing sparks atop the wood-frame building.
Neighbour Maxine Erskine said she was awoken by the crackling of the fire.
“It sounded just like a freight train,” she said.
Both Erskine and McCreesh described a young father frantically waving his arms to get help after most of the residents had rushed to safety. At that point, the building looked like it would be consumed by the fire, according to McCreesh.
“Nobody was getting out of there,” Erskine said.
Neighbours and friends identified the victims Tuesday as Narges Casnajad and her son Sepehr.
“That’s our main heartbreak,” said District of North Vancouver assistant fire chief Walt Warner.
While it’s much too early to pinpoint the cause of the blaze, Warner said it was “extremely hot.”
A full investigation of the fire is being conducted by the North Vancouver RCMP Arson Unit, District of North Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services and the B.C. Coroners Service.
Despite that heat, three residents may have saved the life of a disabled woman who lived on the first floor of the building, according to McCreesh.
Neighbour Jim Thompson recounted rushing to the scene and finding the fire had torn through the corridor and was at his neighbour’s door.
Along with two other tenants he didn’t know, Thompson helped lift the woman out of her side window and to safety.
“We got her out,” he said.
“If it hadn’t been for those men she would have died,” McCreesh said. “That woman had guardian angels.”
“I just did what needed to be done,” Thompson said.
Thompson spent most of the evening on oxygen in emergency care but said he had stopped coughing and was recovering from his smoke inhalation.
Another 15 residents were hospitalized, according to the District of North Vancouver.
Nine of the building’s 17 units may be uninhabitable due to fire, smoke and water damage, according to the district.
Due to the intensity of the blaze, nearby buildings were also evacuated. Dozens of neighbours spent the night in a makeshift shelter at Mickey McDougall rec centre as firefighters knocked down the blaze until dawn.
Warner could not confirm if the building’s fire alarm sounded during the blaze.
After 23 years in the area, McCreesh said many residents were traumatized by the fire. “When you see it in real life, it’s really life-altering,” she said. “We’ll never feel the same here again.”
“I was watching giant embers flying up and I kept thinking if this had been in the summer . . . that whole forest behind us could’ve gone like a matchstick,” said Erskine.
Emery Village resident Terry Wagner noted a neighbour had turned a garden house on the Emery Village rooftops to keep the blaze from spreading.
“Every neighbour out here who had the ability to do anything was out here trying to help,” he said. “At the end of the day we’re neighbours, we’re friends and we’re family and we look out for each other.”
Warner extended his gratitude to B.C. Ambulance Service, the North Shore Emergency Management Office and fellow firefighters from the City of North Vancouver. “There’s a lot of people that fought really hard tonight.”
