An officer of the Lake Cowichan RCMP in B.C. has been hailed a hero by his peers.
At approximately 4:41 a.m. local time, a neighbour called 911 and reported he saw smoke coming from a home on Cowichan Avenue near King George Road.
According to police, the neighbour banged on the door in an attempt to wake the occupants of the house; however, no one answered the door.
By happenstance, an RCMP officer was driving past the home on his way to work. He gained access to the home and found two men inside. After waking the men, the officer accompanied them out of the burning building. One of the men then told the officer a female occupant remained inside the home.
The off-duty officer returned inside the house and rescued the woman.
“Fortunately, the officer was able to get everyone out to safety, as the home became fully engulfed in flames shortly after the third occupant was removed. All three adults were checked by Emergency Health Services, and no serious injuries were sustained,” the RCMP said.
“The officer’s actions and bravery is commendable,” Lita Watson, detachment commander of Lake Cowichan RCMP, said in the release.
“He put his own life in danger, without even a second thought, to help those people who would have been severely injured.”
She added she also wanted to “recognize and acknowledge the efforts made by the neighbour who tried their best to rouse the occupants of that home and called for emergency assistance.”
Neighbours
Tara Fraser, a neighbour who lives two houses away, said she heard noise.“I was met with a curious orange glow from my upstairs bathroom window. I walked towards it almost daydream-like and pulled the curtains to see huge flames shooting up above the tree line between Mike’s property and the house next to me.”
The men said they were in shock following the massive fire that destroyed their home.
“We went to bed last night all comfortable and nice and this morning we were being jarred out of bed by a saviour, a guy that came in and rescued us out of this fire,” Lake Cowichan resident Mike Bell told Chek News. “We didn’t even know the fire was going.”
His son said the RCMP officer woke him up.
“Yeah, when he was waking me up, my door was closed and he said, ‘This is the RCMP get out of the house,’ and the whole roof was already on fire,” Mr. Travis Bell said.
“One more minute, like when we got out to the sidewalk, the windows blew and all the black smoke billowed out the windows, that quick,” said Mr. Mike Bell.
“Totally, yeah, we would have died,” his son added.
The family had no clothes and no possessions when they escaped the fire, but nearby neighbours who heard explosions came to help. Large trees and forest surrounded the house and neighbours reported that the house went up quickly.
The investigation into the cause of the fire is ongoing; however, at this time it is not deemed suspicious. Mr. Knott said the fire appears to have started where there was wiring for a greenhouse behind the home.
