Dramatic Dinnertime Inferno

The fire caused the crane to collapse and fall onto the street

Just as we were sitting down to dinner at home tonight, around 6.30pm, I heard four big booms, explosions. Soon after I could hear sirens.

I went out the door to see other neighbours walking over to see what was going on. We went to Dunbar Street and could see a giant plume of smoke. As we walked towards it, we could see large, angry flames. Even though we were blocks away I could feel the heat already.

Smoke smouldering on the roof

It looked like it was coming from the construction site where a multi-storey seniors' home was being built, and it was completely engulfed in flames.

Many people continued to make their way closer to 41st Avenue, but a South Asian man walking towards us said the embers were so hot it was hard for him to breathe and told us to stay away.

I took a few pictures and then went back home and noticed some black chunks on our lawn -- they were blackened embers that had flown from that fire to our place several blocks away.

After eating a bit of dinner I could hear shouts outside and went out again. This time it was our neighbour's roof that was smouldering! The family of three, including their adult son were outside. The wife having a video call with relatives and telling them that someone knocked on their house to tell them their roof was on fire, while the son had his phone glued to his ear, talking to his friends.

A firetruck was already there, with firefighters suited up. They got their ladder out and climbed up to the roof with a hose to put the fire out. One of the fire officials advised us to check our properties to see if anything was smouldering and I looked over our roof twice to make sure. While there was no smoke, there were lots of black chunks of burnt out embers lying on the ground and bits of white material too.

Burnt out embers 

One neighbour said a construction crane melted where the massive fire was and on X (formerly Twitter) I found the footage -- the crane collapsed from the heat and fell across the street onto a house, while burning embers caused a house to catch on fire as well.

The crane falling on the street had taken down trolley bus wires and electricity wires, causing a power outage in the area. 

Later in the evening we drove by trying to get a look, but the area was still blocked off. 

As far as we know there were no deaths or injuries, though firefighters suffered minor ones.

Thank goodness everyone is safe and accounted for. A lot of drama in the neighbourhood this evening!

It wasn't the only burning inferno -- another building in east Vancouver was also on fire. An abandoned apartment building at 414 East 10th Avenue was in flames -- a year after fire had displaced 70 people.