It's being described as one of the biggest fires to hit downtown since New Westminster’s Great Fire of 1898.
The blaze broke out early this morning in a building that used to house the old Copp's shoe store at the corner of Columbia and MacKenzie streets.
Downtown resident Doug Whicker learned about the fire when he was awoken by an early morning phone call from a neighbour.
“(He) said you’ve got to get up and see this. It’s an amazing fire,” says Whicker, who ran upstairs to the roof of his building on Carnarvon Street.
“It was really black smoke and amazing flames, and the smoke was going up Sixth Street,” he says.
The downtown resident says his neighbourhood is closed to vehicles between Front and Columbia streets and closed to pedestrians between Sixth and Eighth streets. Trucks are being diverted down his street.
“We are seeing semi-trailers going down Carnarvon. It’s really quite something, and it’s creating a lot of havoc with traffic obviously. That’s one of the first things I’ve heard about on it.”
Whicker didn’t notice any smell because the smoke is mostly rising, he said.
