The Sechelt volunteer fire department is crediting a simple smoke alarm for saving the life of a Sechelt man on March 27.
"That's what alerted him to the fire. He was in the house when the fire was burning but he didn't have any idea really until the smoke alarm went off," Sechelt Fire Chief Bill Higgs said. "He was in the kitchen doing dishes when he heard the alarm. Then he walked around the corner into the front room, and there was this fire burning."
Higgs said the homeowner on Neptune Road had started a fire in a woodstove sometime around 6 p.m.
"We think there maybe was a malfunction somehow there," Higgs said, noting that shortly after the fire was set in the stove, it spread to the front room of the home.
Once the homeowner was alerted to the fire, he tried to dowse the flames with water. When it was obvious he could not stop the blaze, Higgs said the man gathered his animals and left the house.
Luckily some off-duty firefighters were not far from the home and arrived on scene just four minutes after the fire department was called.
"When we got there, smoke was coming out of every edge of the home and fire was coming out the back door where the owner had exited," Higgs said.
Firefighters got to work and they were able to save much of the home.
"We were able, with the mini pumper, to get it knocked down before it started venting out all the windows and before it got into the attic, which was really good because once it gets in the attic through the ceiling, it's really hard firefighting. You have to get in there and that's when you end up with everything laying on the floor," Higgs said. "Another couple of minutes and that's what it would have been."
He credits the homeowner's working smoke detector as the reason this story didn't turn out much worse and he is backing the Fire Chiefs' Association of B.C. in their effort to get working alarms in every home.
He said a report done by the association shows a serious need for the push.
"What we were finding is that although people had smoke alarms they weren't working or they were placed in the wrong location or the battery was dead or there were a million reasons why they weren't working to the point where it is a significant issue," Higgs said. "So we find that our public education campaign for the next couple of years is going to be really focused on smoke alarms."
