Burnaby fire forces family out of home during party

A number of people were forced out of their house in Burnaby when a small fire broke out early Sunday morning.

The residents of the house called 911 around 2 a.m. after smelling strong smoke coming from one of the upstairs rooms.

"I was in the back of the house just sitting with my friends and my dad came out yelling there was a fire in the house," said Ashley Leva, who was having a party when the fire broke out.

"I saw smoke everywhere. All upstairs was full of smoke."

Tenant sleeping in bed

Leva said a tenant in the house was fast asleep when the fire broke out, and they tried to pull to him out of bed.

"One of the guys was sleeping upstairs next to the fire ... we basically ran into his room and pulled him out," she said.

"He wouldn't get out of his bed. He basically stayed in his room the whole time."

Firefighters arrived shortly after and immediately went inside to rescue the man, who may have been intoxicated at the time, according to Leva.

"We went into rescue mode and found one of the tenants sleeping, unaware of the fire at the time," said Assistant Chief Bryan Kane.

"So we walked him out. Hopefully he's fine, maybe nothing more than smoke inhalation."

Crews found that some of the man's belongings had caught fire in his room.

'We don't get into this area very often'

Ricardo Leva is one of ten people who lives in the house.

He saidhe was upset that the fire department took what he calleda 'long time' to show up.

"We had to phone twice when the fire department is about five or six blocks away," he said.

Kane said Burnaby Fire received multiple reports about the fireand wanted to ensure the address was correct, before crews left.

"We don't get into this area very often," said Kane.

"So we made sure to check our maps make sure we got here the most direct route, which we did."

The chief said his crews found a lightly smoking ashtray in the room where the man was sleeping, which Kane said may have been the cause of the fire.

Firefighters managed to contain the damage to the tenant's room, although some of the people in the house won't be able to return tonight.