2 people dead after separate house fires this week in Lower Mainland
There have been two fatal fires in the Lower Mainland this week.
A man died in a house fire in Chilliwack, B.C., on Saturday while another person died in a house fire in Coquitlam Wednesday night.
The latest fire started just after 7 a.m. Saturday at a home in the 8700 block of Butchart Street in Chilliwack.
Fire crews arrived to see flames coming from a basement window of the single-family residence. Firefighters managed to quickly put out the blaze but found a deceased male in the basement afterwards.
Chilliwack Fire Chief Ian Josephson said in a release that fire damage to the home was mostly in one bedroom.
Smoke alarms
Josephson said there were smoke alarms in the home, but not in the bedroom where the fire began.
"The closest smoke alarm was in the adjacent room and we're not sure it was functional at the time of the fire," wrote Josephson in an email to CBC News.
Chilliwack Fire Department fire investigators, RCMP and the B.C. Coroners Service all determined the cause of the fire to be accidental.
The identity of the victim or their age has not been released.
Police investigating Coquitlam fire
The fire on Saturday follows another fatal fire from earlier in the week in Coquitlam, which also claimed a life.
Coquitlam RCMP are investigating the cause of the fire, which caused extensive damage to a home on Wednesday night in the 3300 block of McTavish Court.
Several other people in the house were able to escape the flames, but the body of the victim was discovered after the fire was extinguished.
The identity of the victim from the Coquitlam house fire has also not been released.
At the time, investigators asked neighbours with video surveillance of the area around the time of the fire to come forward.
