KELOWNA – A faulty furnace is being blamed for a fire that tore through a Kelowna house, leaving five people homeless.
The blaze broke out just before 9 a.m. Friday in boarding-room type rental house on Gordon Drive.
“I heard a loud boom, it sounded like something blew up,” says resident James Zizek, who was the only one inside the home. “I came downstairs and when I saw the smoke, it was bellowing so fast, I didn’t want to mess with that. I got the hell out of there right now.”
Crews attacked the fire from outside and inside the house.
Believing they had the situation under control, fire fighters then moved into the overhaul phase.
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“That means they’re going to take down the ceilings, open up the walls, whatever we need to to make sure the fire isn’t spreading in any cavities in the house,” says KFD platoon captain Dennis Miller.
But the flames were creeping unseen through the attic area and then burst through the roof.
The house is a tear down and the residents probably lost all their possessions to the flames, smoke and water.
“It’s unreal, something I’ve never experienced before,” says resident Jack Stover. “It’s almost like it’s not happening.”
KFD fire inspector, Paul Johnson, says the cause was a furnace failure that caused it to overheat.
“The fire was starved for air and it shot out the front of the furnace. There were materials in front of the furnace that caught fire. There were also a couple spare tires stored close to point of origin, and once they got going there was no turning back, off the fire went.”
The displaced residents are being looked after for a few days by Emergency Social Services.
They didn’t have insurance for their possessions and the owner didn’t have insurance for the house.
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