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Neighbour helps rescue family from fire

'All it was was a wall of fire,' - Ken Robinson

An off-duty RCMP officer is being hailed as a hero after helping rescue a woman and her elderly parents from a fire in their home early Sunday morning.

David Francoeur was moving car seats from one vehicle to another when he spotted flames coming out of the window of a home across the alley. After calling 911, he went to his neighbour's house, found a woman on a balcony and got a ladder to help her down.

Ken Robinson was flicking through the TV stations, when he heard a clanking sound. He initially thought his kids were making noise downstairs, but he spotted his neighbour setting up a ladder at the house next door and went to help.

"Nothing but flames," he said of what he witnessed. "(The resident) was in hysterics because her dogs were inside. She wouldn't go down the ladder until her dogs were out."

Francoeur climbed the ladder because the woman was refusing to come down until she could get her dogs out of the house.

"I almost had to restrain her to get her down," he told The Vancouver Sun.

Francoeur convinced the woman to climb down from the balcony, telling her he'd go inside and get the dogs.

"All it was was a wall of fire," Robinson said. "There was no way."

Robinson held the bottom of the wonky ladder to ensure the two could safely climb down from the balcony.

According to Robinson, fire crews arrived and extinguished the fire very quickly. While he was never worried about the fire spreading to his house, he said the house on the other side of the burning home could easily have caught on fire if flames had spread to a tall cedar tree by the two properties.

While the family's cat survived the house fire, their two small dogs perished in the blaze.

All of the family members, including a senior couple and two young men, made it out of the home safely. The woman rescued from the house was taken to hospital and released soon after.

"She went to the hospital when she got out," Robinson said. "She came right back to the house."

Many people have called Francoeur a hero for his role in helping his neighbour from the burning home. Robinson believes the title is justified as he's quite sure his neighbour would have gone back into the house to rescue her two dogs if she hadn't been convinced to come down from the balcony.

Images on the TV news and YouTube show flames pouring out of an upper window of the home at 926 Fourth St.

Fire inspector Brent Joel credited neighbours for helping the woman get down from the balcony.

Although media reports indicated that a candle or smoking in bed may have caused the fire, New Westminster Fire and Rescue hadn't confirmed the official cause by The Record's deadline.

"I have it located to a certain area," Joel said. "It is more or less in the bed area. She is lucky to be alive."

According to Joel, the fire damage was confined to the bathroom, one bedroom on the upper floor of the home, and the hallway leading downstairs. "The crews did a really good job."

tmcmanus@royalcityrecord.com