Residents escaped safely, but a home suffered significant damage in a Thursday morning fire in the 3400-block of Shelbourne Street.
Fire and smoke were showing from the back of the residence when Saanich Fire Department arrived March 13 around 8:30 a.m. with four apparatus, 14 firefighters and an officer.
Crews quickly knocked down the fire, but the house sustained substantial damage at the back of the building, Assistant Deputy Chief Craig Ford told the Saanich News.
Shelbourne Street was closed briefly during the morning commute.
It was the second street closure due to fire for the Saanich department, which faced a fully engulfed home on the other side of the community about four hours earlier. In that case, the home was destroyed.
While not common, it’s not unheard of to have two confirmed structure fires timed so closely together, Ford said. For the Saanich department, it’s a matter of triaging and relying on mutual aid agreements with neighbouring departments.
“In this case we just put them on standby to deal with the rest of the district while we were dealing with two fires,” he said.
