A fire destroyed two houses on Vancouver's Commercial Street in Victoria-Fraserview on Monday, July 15 night.
Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services (VFRS) were called just after 6 p.m. to a fire in a house on the 6100 block of Commercial Street.
VFRS Acting Ass. Chief Chris Gill told V.I.A. the home was fully involved in flames when firefighters arrived, with heavy smoke coming out of the basement window.
"It was coming out with such intensity and there is only about three or five feet between houses," he explained, adding that the heat and flames quickly spread to the home next door.
The residential area around 47th and Commercial was blocked off from just after 6 p.m. through the night. Crews battled the blaze for several hours and only one rig was on scene around midnight. However, the VFRS dispatched a couple of rigs back to the scene at 3 a.m. to put out hotspots that weren't detected after the initial fire was put out.
"As far as we were concerned it was out...but there was an ember going," Gill said, noting that crews stayed on scene until about 7 a.m.
Seven fire apparatus and 31 firefighters responded to the second-alarm fire, which destroyed two houses and damaged two others. The two other homes that were impacted suffered water damage.
One person was sent to hospital with minor smoke inhalation and was released.
The Emergency Coordination Centre (ECC) will assist the 10 people who were displaced by the fire.
The fire remains under investigation.
