Vancouver firefighters extinguish two-alarm duplex blaze in Strathcona neighbourhood

Vancouver firefighters battled a two-alarm blaze in a Strathcona neighbourhood duplex Friday night that took four hours to extinguish.

A neighbour reported the fire to authorities around 9:25 p.m. in a wood-frame townhouse duplex near the corner of Keefer Street and Hawks Avenue, according to a fire department spokesperson.

No one was injured in the blaze, said Trevor Connelly, the department's assistant chief of operations.

"Half of the duplex was fully involved in fire upon arrival of the fire crews," Connelly told CBC News on Saturday. "The crews were able to get in there and get the fire under control and knocked right back."

But they discovered the blaze had spread into the building's walls, so firefighters had to knock some walls out and stay for nearly four hours to put the fire out fully.

"Once the initial bulk of the fire was knocked down, it was a lot of hard labour work with ladders, opening up walls, and getting at the fire in nooks and crannies," Connelly said.

The extent of any damage to the second duplex unit is still unknown.