A vacant apartment building in Vancouver’s Mount Pleasant neighbourhood ravaged by fire for the third time in two years on Tuesday will be demolished, officials say.
Firefighters were called to the property at 414 E. 10th Ave. just after 4:30 p.m. and found the third floor completely engulfed in flames.
Crews quickly upgraded the call to a two-alarm fire and focused on protecting neighbouring buildings, Asst. Chief Keith Stewart told Global News.
The property was permanently evacuated in July 2023 after another major fire displaced dozens of residents.
Neighbours Global News spoke with said they were angry the property had been left standing for more than a year after the disaster.
“I’m potentially watching my home burn down and thinking about entirely how preventative this would be if the city had just done something to take care of the life and safety of people in this area. This building should have been torn down a year ago,” said Rob Bucci, who lives next door.
Bucci said the building had become a nuisance property, but that multiple calls to the city had not resulted in action.
Emergency crews have been regularly called to the building since the 2023 fire, he added.
“(I’m) living next door to a rotting, fetid building full of people’s old food and furniture and fridges that hadn’t been emptied, so there was a definite smell,” he said.
“And then that gave way to squatters living there most of the time who were lighting small fires periodically, once a month, once every two months, and then the rats came.”
At a media briefing providing updates on the Mount Pleasant fire and a second, simultaneous fire in the Dunbar neighbourhood, Vancouver fire Chief Karen Fry said the building would soon be knocked down.
Fry said the administrative process to clear the site had been moving slowly through Vancouver city council, but would now be expedited.
“It will be up for imminent demolition,” Fry said.
“It has extensive damage to that building so the city will be moving ahead with that in the very near future.”
Earlier this year, the building’s owner was fined $4,500 over numerous fire code violations at the building, identified in a November 2022 inspection.
Fu Ren pleaded guilty to six of 20 code violations he faced, including failing to maintain the sprinkler systems and fire extinguishers and allowing fire hazards such as exposed wires.
“The landlord Fu Ren was under a court order from February of this year that said he had to maintain a 24-hour fire watch, that they had to keep it secure from squatters, that they had to abide by the Vancouver fire code,” said Vancouver Coun. Pete Fry.
“Clearly I don’t think that’s been followed through on so I think that is a separate issue that I hope will inform some more rigorous follow-up as far as potential prosecution.”
No one was injured in the fire, and its cause remains under investigation.