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One dead after fire at Surrey home

Police, fire department now investigating

One person is dead following a fire in a Fraser Heights home.

Surrey Fire Battalion Chief Reo Jerome said that one person has died.

Emergency crews were on scene at the home Friday morning, which happened in the 11100-block of 158th Street, according to a Black Press Media freelancer on scene.

The freelancer said that crews arrived to find the fire coming from the basement of a two-storey home.

John Lehmann, deputy chief of operations, said when crews arrived, they found “heavy smoke” coming from a basement suite.

Lehmann said it was the residents on the main floor that phoned 911, adding that there may be a person in the basement suite. He said the upstairs residents all escaped from the home.

Crews did a full search of the house, Lehmann said, and found one person in the basement.

That person died at the scene.

Surrey Fire Service, BC Coroner Service and Surrey RCMP are now investigating the fire.

Asked if there was a working smoke alarm in the home, Lehmann said he’s hoping the investigation can determine that.

“There’s no better means for helping people survivability rate in a fire than having a working smoke alarm.”

READ ALSO: Surrey firefighters ‘sounding the alarm’ about trucks not in service due to budget, March 25, 2020

READ ALSO: Surrey Fire Chief reveals the challenges firefighters are facing during COVID-19 crisis, March 26, 2020

This comes after the Surrey Fire Fighters Association tweeted Wednesday it was “sounding the alarm” about having trucks out of service in North Surrey due to budget constraints.

But on Thursday, Surrey Fire Chief Larry Thomas told the Now-Leader the situation doesn’t have anything to do with budget constraints.

“We’re experiencing extremely high shortages of staff,” he explained, “way over double what we’d normally have. There’s lots of travel isolations, contact isolations and symptom-related isolations. And it varies from shift to shift.

– With files from Tom Zillich, Tom Zytaruk



lauren.collins@surreynowleader.com

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Lauren Collins

About the Author: Lauren Collins

I'm a provincial reporter for Black Press Media's national team, after my journalism career took me across B.C. since I was 19 years old.
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