UPDATE: RCMP have confirmed they have an 18 year old woman in custody that they believe to have started the fire.
They say they were responding to a domestic dispute between the woman and her mother just prior to the blaze.
They were called to unit 122 of the Cascade Gardens Townhouse Complex at 8:00pm, six minutes before the Penticton Fire Department got reports of fire coming from the same unit.
“The fire went into the walls, into the floors, into the attic space,” says Penticton Fire Department Chief Larry Watkinson. “We were basically chasing four different house fires in one complex… with the four-plex, we had fires in each unit and we were tactically aggressively fighting the fire with four different strategies.”
Watkinson says the entire PFD responded to the fire.
RCMP say the woman is facing potential charges of arson and arson to endanger life.
PENTICTON – A fire at a townhouse complex in Penticton was deliberately set.
The fire chief confirms they’re conducting an arson investigation.
The blaze broke out Thursday just after 8 p.m. at the Cascade Gardens townhouses on Penticton Avenue.
The flames spread from one unit to three others.
At least a dozen people safely evacuated their homes but a cat and three birds perished in the fire.
PFD chief, Larry Watkinson, says police were dealing with a domestic dispute at the unit not long before the fire started there.
A resident of the complex told Global News a woman was taken away in a police car.