Coquitlam family seeks assistance after fire
An extended family has been devastated by a fire in Coquitlam on July 31 that destroyed all their identification, photos, clothes and personal effects.
“Everything is gone,” said Sara Habash, who — along with her father and brother — was staying at the Spuraway Avenue home rented by her other brother Abe.
Sara and her brother Ahmed were in the house when it caught fire, while her father Hasan and Abe — who rents the home with his wife and two small children — were out.
She said the pair barely escaped through smoke so thick they couldn’t breathe or see each other. A tenant in a basement suite also escaped safely, while RCMP evacuated a dozen homes along Spuraway Avenue and shut down the street.
Initially, Sara thought the barbecue on the deck was on fire, even though it hadn’t been used in a month. She and Ahmed were making their way to the front of the house to get the garden hose when smoke overwhelmed them and windows began exploding.
Just after they got outside, she said, the roof began to cave.
“It hasn’t sunk in,” Sara said. Sara, Hasan and Ahmed were visiting from London, Ont., while Abe’s wife and two children, aged one and four, were visiting relatives in Nova Scotia.
Abe did not have renter’s insurance.
“My brother built a life anyone would be proud of,” Sara said of her 35-year-old sibling. “In an instant, it was destroyed.”
She said her brother does not even have a pair of socks or underwear other than what he was wearing. The family had emergency funds provided by the Red Cross and area churches for a motel, but that ran out last Tuesday, Sara said.
Since then, the four have stayed in a motel and in a car, while a GoFundMe page has been set up to raise money for the family.
Sara said she will delay returning to the University of Western Ontario until she knows her brother and his family will be OK.
Abe’s wife and children remain in Nova Scotia, but their fouryear-old son Braeh is due to start preschool down the street from the gutted home in three weeks. She said her dad needs emergency refills of prescriptions, not all of which could be refilled outside of Ontario.
Because the remains of the house are so unsafe, the cause is as yet undetermined, Coquitlam fire Chief Jim Ogloff said.