If you’ve been waiting to help the 37 families who had to leave their homes following June’s Wilson Avenue apartment fire, here’s your chance.
Profile Properties is slated to accept cash and gift cards during a garage-sale-by-donation from noon to 3 p.m. on Wednesday. The event is set to be held at 2331 Marpole Avenue by the Profile Properties office. Proceeds from the garage sale will go to displaced residents.
Prior to the opening of the garage sale, displaced residents will have a chance to take any items they would like, according to a statement from the City of Port Coquitlam.
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Thirty-seven families were temporarily housed after a fire tore through a Wilson Avenue apartment building Saturday night in late-June.
The city previously reported receiving an: “overwhelming amount of requests for donations.”
State of the building
Discussing the fire last week, Port Coquitlam acting fire chief Jeff Sweet said it was too early to even estimate when residents – many of whom are seniors – could move back into their homes.
While about half the building looks untouched by the fire, the extent of the damage rendered the building unsafe to enter, leaving firefighters to use hose streams to force open doors and windows.
The fire
The fire started Saturday night, June 25. On Monday afternoon firefighters were still putting out hot spots.
“We knock it down and it smoulders and then starts to heat up again,” Sweet said, explaining that the debris can sometimes act like kindling.
The fire produced heavy smoke that fell over the surrounding streets.
“We would be hundreds of feet away and still be enveloped by smoke,” Sweet said, explaining the challenge posed by the constant shifts in the wind.
“We were going from all around the building, different areas of the city, trying to stay away from the smoke and the odd person got caught up in it.”
One firefighter suffered smoke inhalation
“He was checked out at the hospital and released within a couple of hours. He’s fine,” Sweet said.
