50 residents displaced after fire near Oppenheimer Park on Saturday: officials

Fifty residents have been displaced after a fire near Oppenheimer Park on Saturday morning.

The Vancouver Fire Rescue says the fire happened at 143 Dunlevy Avenue by Powell Street.

Firefighters arrived on the scene just after 8 a.m. on Sept. 24.

“Upon arrival our fire crews discovered a fire on the second floor, we went on an offensive fire attack and they discovered one unit fully engulfed in flame, heavy smoke and heat conditions, and they attacked that fire,” said Brian Bertuzzi, assistant chief of operations at Vancouver Fire Rescue.

He says that during the process the fire also spread to the third floor of the building and included multiple suites.

Natasha is one of the building residents that has been displaced because of the fire.

“This morning when my sprinkler started going off, that’s when I knew it was really serious,” she said.

Bertuzzi notes that Vancouver’s Emergency Management team is helping to work out the details of finding accommodations for residents.

Bertuzzi said, “It’s quite a process, over 50 people have been displaced and are going to be out of the building for at least the weekend.”

But for Natasha, she told CityNews that she wasn’t sure where she was going to sleep tonight, and noted she would probably be sleeping in the park.

Additionally, Natasha says that she’s not sure how this will affect her future.

“We’ve been fighting really, really hard to get into a proper place, but when COVID hit everything shut down, so for two years we were stuck, we finally just got out of that lull, and then this happened. So now I don’t know what the future will hold.”

The cause of the fire is still under investigation at this time.