One dead and three evacuated as fire tears through east Van home

Witness says he heard explosions from garage before flames erupted

Vancouver police say a body was found inside a burning east Vancouver home on Tuesday.

The B.C. Coroners Service was on the scene in the 3400 block of East Third Avenue near the Burnaby border.

The family of three living upstairs evacuated the house safely, but a downstairs tenant was unaccounted for after the fire had been subdued, said Vancouver fire bat- talion Chief Steve Duncan.

“We have a report of a person missing in the basement,” Duncan said on the scene in front of the smoking two-storey building Tuesday morning.

Duncan said crews’ search efforts were hampered by a fair amount of debris and fire damage throughout the structure. The family’s cat was also missing, Duncan said. The house burst into flames shortly before 9 a.m. Tuesday, said Wayne Adamson, who works nearby. Adamson said he heard three explosions and saw, from across the street, the garage in the house’s ground floor engulfed in flames before the fire spread to the rest of the house.

“Within five minutes, it was engulfed,” Adamson said, adding he called 911, and one of the residents outside the home told him she was quite upset about her cat.

“I went into the front part of the house to see if I could find the cat, but it wouldn’t come to me, so I don’t know if the cat got out or not,” said Adamson.