Donations pour in for residents displaced by New Westminster apartment fire

City estimates up to 150 people have been left homeless

Nebyou Getahun came back to his New Westminster apartment on Monday hoping to retrieve the documents that prove he’s allowed to be in Canada. Nothing seems intact of the corner unit he was renting, except the balcony railing. The building at 905 Fourth Ave. was gutted by fire on Friday evening.

The whole property is fenced off now, and nobody is allowed inside. Getahun and his family arrived in Canada about three months ago from South Africa. His wife had taken their two boys, nine and four, to a park on Friday afternoon.

Then someone called and told him there’d been an accident at the building. Everything they owned was in the apartment, including his permanent residency papers and all his identification. He has photos of them on his phone, but doesn’t know if that’s enough.

“I feel bad because I’ve got two children, and I don’t know what to do,” he said. Getahun stood at the fence, waiting for the landlord. With him was Kebede Abate, who identified himself as president of the Ethiopian Canadian Human Rights Association of B.C., pressing for someone to let Getahun in for his papers.

Those documents, he said, are the man’s life. Abate said a number of African newcomers lived in the building. A property manager came instead of the landlord and told them what security had been telling people for two days: The site isn’t safe, and only authorities can go in.

The fire started around 1:30 p.m. Friday and displaced an estimated 150 people, the City of New Westminster said. Firefighters faced burning units and residents trapped on balconies, and brought several down on ladders. It wasn’t under control until about 2:30 a.m. Saturday.

Two firefighters and one resident were taken to hospital on Friday. The firefighters have since been sent home. On Monday, the building was a shell.

Cars still sat parked underneath. In the wreckage one could make out a fridge, a washing machine, a chair, a couch, a few mattresses. Water dripped into the parking lot and the smoke smell hadn’t gone.

Somewhere inside an alarm was still chirping. Pavan Kaur, hired to guard the site, has watched residents come back. They arrive with red eyes, she said.

“People had their life savings up in there,” Kaur said. The security guards are on the scene 24-7 and are on the lookout for smoke. She said firefighters returned Saturday night when smoke reappeared and stayed about six hours.

At the Lord Kelvin Elementary School gym, the response was piling up on the floor. Clothing for every season and every age, along with shoes, diapers and hygiene supplies. The stage was overflowing with donation bags nobody had opened yet.

About a dozen volunteers were sorting Monday at noon, and people kept arriving with more, even though collection has been paused since Sunday for lack of room. Mary Trentadue, who runs the New Westminster Neighbourhood House, said a former member saw the fire on social media and asked if they could help. She phoned the school board at 10 a.m. Saturday, and the gym was available by 1 p.m. About 10 families have come through for donations.

They aren’t sure what to take, she said, because they don’t know what the next three or four days look like. More than 100 people emailed in a day offering to help. What people actually need isn’t in the room.

“They need some money to be able to make the choices that they need to make,” Trentadue said. “If they have to find a new place to live, they’re going to need a damage deposit.” The cause of the fire is not known.

Fire Chief Erin Williams said in a statement the investigation is preliminary and will take several weeks, drawing on witness statements from firefighters and residents and evidence from the scene, with New Westminster police assisting. It’s still not known if the building had sprinklers and whether alarms sounded. Getahun said his family is in a hotel in Metrotown, paid for until next week.

He said they’ve been told to wait for next steps. The family received about $1,070 from the government in vouchers for food and clothing. Asked how he was holding up, Getahun said South Africa had been hard, and now this.

Getahun and Abate lingered awhile by the car, standing close to the fence and looking up at what was left of the building. Then they drove away, empty-handed.