Spencer Kenyon remembers hearing the commotion while in his first-floor suite. “All of a sudden I hear that everyone in the building started screaming ‘go, go’ and everyone is frantic,” the 21-year-old said. Instead of running for safety, Kenyon, an aspiring firefighter, quickly climbed two stories to the third-floor unit where a mother and son were desperately trying to escape. Witnesses say the young boy looked about 10 years old and had blown air on one of his legs. “He’s like smoke inhalation because he’s next to the apartment, so I just have to go downstairs to get him and he’s a little bit of an older kid, but he’s really sweet,” Kenyon said. “The young lad had a broken leg, I think he had blown air into his right leg,” said fellow resident Craig Soles. “Spencer just picked him up, put him in.” Video captured by a neighbor and shared with CTV News shows smoke pouring from a third-floor window of the multi-unit building on Comox Street. The call came in around 7:45 p.m., according to the Vancouver Fire Department, which told CTV News the fire was accidental. A mother and son in the suite where the fire started suffered smoke inhalation but were otherwise able to get out of the building unharmed. No other injuries were reported, firefighters said. Crews could not say how many residents of the BC Housing building would be displaced by the fire, but noted that at least the third-floor unit where the fire started and those directly below it would be unoccupied for some time. Most of the damage was contained to the suite where the fire started, crews said, adding that some of the other units in the building suffered smoke and water damage. CTV News reached out to BC Housing but did not receive a statement before deadline.
