MONCTON – Fourteen residents of an apartment building in Moncton are out of their homes after a fire damaged the building Wednesday morning.
Firefighters were called to the building at 10 Belmont Street at 7:40 a.m. and arrived to find one unit completely engulfed, Moncton Fire Chief Eric Arsenault said.
“We had one unit that was fully involved and smoke,” Chief Arsenault said. “Firefighters did a great job getting here quickly and aggressively attacking the fire.”
The fire remains under investigation.
The apartment building has 10 units and everybody made it out of the building safely, but a teacup Yorkshire Terrier was critically injured in the fire.
Firefighters were able to contain the fire to the one unit, but expect other units will be affected by smoke and water damage.
Marc Belliveau, head of disaster management at the Red Cross, said they are providing assistance to 14 people in the building and none of the tenants had renter’s insurance.
“Some will be staying with friends and we will be providing hotel accommodations for 72 hours for others,” he said.
Neighbour Margie McLaughlin said she heard all the fire engines pass by early this morning, but thought nothing of it until she looked outside and saw the apartment building right next door was on fire.
“It was just smoke,” she said. “The whole roof looked like it was smoke underneath it.”
McLaughlin said she had lived in her house for 50 years, and had never seen anything like it.
“It’s frightening,” she said. “I can see why people say when something like this happens, they don’t know what to do.”
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