Large fire tears through furniture warehouse in Burnaby

Burnaby firefighters had a long battle with a fire at a used furniture store near Kingsway early Friday morning.

The large blaze broke out at the store on Imperial Street near MacPherson Avenue just before 2:00 a.m. PT

Gary Demsey was walking back from the SkyTrain when he saw the furniture store fully engulfed in flames.

"I started running down the alley, I pulled out my cell phone and my cell phone was dead," said Demsey, who phoned 911 from his house.

"I've never seen a fire like that ... I had an umbrella in my hand when I was walking back and the heat was so intense it was pushing my umbrella away from me."

Started as a vehicle fire

Assistant Fire Chief Laine Zimmermann said the fire started in a truck parked behind the building.

He said it spread to the building quickly and his crews weren't able to extinguish it in time.

"Being a furniture store there'sa lot of stuff for the fire to take hold of, and we weren't able to extinguish it," he said.

The battle lasted over two hours as crews poured water onto the fire from all directions.

Zimmermann called the building a "total loss."No one was injured and there was no fire damage to the adjacent buildings.

Investigators will be looking into the exact cause of the fire later today.