A fire broke out on a ground-level apartment, trapping a resident inside, at the New Horizon Apartments in Port Hardy Jan. 23.
According to Port Hardy Fire Rescue’s (PHFR) Facebook page, Fire Chief Brent Borg was the first to arrive at the scene at 2:18 p.m., where he “established command” and then identified the “rapidly growing fire within a ground-level unit while multiple witnesses on scene reported a person entrapped within the involved unit.”
PHFR’s Ladder 17 arrived shortly after and “established a water supply, while two attack teams mounted an interior attack and primary search, forcing the door to the involved unit,” stated the Facebook post. “The patient was located and removed from the building and transferred to medical care while teams commenced fire attack in the building.”
After rescuing the resident, the fire “was quickly brought under control, contained to a single unit, and fully extinguished.”
“Following ventilation of the building, the residence was cleared for occupancy and tenants returned to their homes in just under two hours from the initial page-out,” noted the post. “We would like to thank our firefighters for their commendable efforts and work, which helped save the apartment complex as well as a life. We also thank the BC RCMP, BC Ambulance Service, and BC Hydro for their assistance on scene, as well as Port McNeill Fire Rescue for standing by in case mutual aid was needed. Finally, we would like to remind the public and occupants of apartment complexes to not ignore fire alarms—when the alarm sounds, evacuate, no questions asked.”
According to the Port Hardy RCMP, the cause of the fire is deemed to be non-suspicious, most likely the result of a careless smoking incident.
The unit resident, a 56-year-old female, was the sole occupant of the unit when it caught fire.
She was transferred to a Hospital in the Lower Mainland with undisclosed injuries.
