Man taken to hospital after Courtenay motel fire destroys supportive housing units

An early morning fire Tuesday has destroyed a portion of a motel in Courtenay, B.C., used for supportive housing.

Crews were called to the Travelodge Motel shortly after 3 a.m. and found fire coming out of two upper-floor units when they arrived.

“Within two minutes it was all gone, the roof, everything was just flames,” says Amber Hiltz, a tenant at the motel.

Hiltz says people living in the motel were alerted to the fire by one of the occupants just prior to the fire alarm being activated.

“There was a gentleman out on the deck upstairs and he was screaming that there was a fire and my friend jumped on the phone in my room and called 911 and the office to get them coming,” Hiltz says.

She says the fire appears to have originated in a chair in one of the units.

“The guy said he was in the bathroom and he came out from peeing and the chair was on fire and it went from just a tiny little dot,” she says. “It was up within four minutes. It was totally engulfed all the way around.”

She says someone attempted to use a fire extinguisher on the blaze before fire crews arrived.