“Could you believe the most irritating thing in the world is what saved my life?”
It’s the first thing said by Lisa Rees when recounting the fire that took down her house, on Hazel Street, last week. A routine irritant — the sound of the garage door opening late at night and disturbing her rest — had been the key to Rees saving herself and the other people living in the home.
“My suite is beside the garage. I have a firewall there, thank goodness, but the garage is where the fire started,” Rees said. “But in the daytime, the landlord will open the garage and it’ll grind, and I can hear the grinding in my bedroom. And it drives me crazy. It irritates me.”
Last week, on April 5, three homes — one at Yale Street, one at 3rd Avenue, and one at Hazel Street — were intentionally set on fire. All of the fires, which happened in the early morning within hours of each other, were started in open carports and unlocked garages.
Rees, who lived at the house on Hazel Street, said she had been trying to go to sleep when she heard the garage door opening, at around 1 a.m., followed by what sounded like an engine starting and a tool box being knocked over. Assuming her landlord was responsible, Rees said she had gone outside to “tear a strip” off of him about why he was opening the door so early in the morning. Instead, she found herself confronted by the sight of the “entire garage engulfed in red flames and the front of [her] landlord’s truck on fire.”
She said it was one of the most “terrifying moments” of her life.
“It was so intense and it had already gone into the roof. Once I saw that, I ran back, grabbed my phone to call 911. My jacket, to have something over my shoulders, and my shoes, and went for my neighbors,” Rees said. “I started smashing on [Racheal Bateman’s] door like a crazy lady. She thought I locked my keys out of my house. But I’m like, ‘the house is on fire. We need to go now.’ And yeah, they [Bateman and her son] were able to grab their cat, and get their stuff out. And then we had to go around and wake up the other tenants and the landlord who were dead asleep. We got everybody out and called 911.
“And it was quite scary. If I would have fallen asleep five minutes sooner none of us would be here right now.”
READ MORE: Fires set deliberately at three Hope homes
Rees, who is originally from Ontario and currently works at the Washtub Launderette, said all that mattered to her was getting everybody out and making sure that no one was left behind.
“I’ve never been in that situation and honestly, I thought I’d be throwing valuables out the door. Collecting my identification, passports, all that kind of stuff,” she said. “But in that moment, all that mattered was the people. My neighbour, her son, her cat, the people sleeping in the main house. That was my only thought.”
Thanks to her quick actions, no injuries were suffered despite the severity of the fire. Of the three houses, it was Rees’s home that burnt down, displacing herself and the other four occupants. Yet, despite these heroic actions, Rees doesn’t believe she’s a hero.
“I was saying to Racheal, I didn’t feel like a hero, I was terrified,” she said. “And she said, ‘do you know what terrified people do? They run.’ And I go, oh, well nobody should ever run.
“The most important thing was to get people out. That’s all that went through my mind is that I don’t die and neither does anybody else.”
Bateman, who lived in the suite next door to Rees, and is a teacher at Hope Secondary School, said she is still trying to understand how someone could do this.
“My son grabbed our cat, and then said we had to go. I was frozen. But I grabbed a bag and ran out of the house. It was crazy,” Bateman said to the Standard. “There were still people inside the house. So we had to bang on windows to wake them up and get them out while calling 911. The fire was huge by the time I got out.
“I went to bed at midnight and my son was still awake in his room with his light on. Whoever did this would have seen the house was not empty and had people in it. That is what concerns me the most. Whoever did this really had no regard for whether the people got out or not.”
Both Bateman and Rees said the house was completely ablaze by the time the firefighters arrived. According to the Hope Fire Department, in a post via Facebook, 12 firefighters tended to the fire till 7 a.m. Hope RCMP, who are working with the fire department, are still searching for the arsonist.
“We are in the early stages of the investigation,” said Staff Sgt. Dwayne Farlin.
“We are asking the public for their assistance and are looking for any home security video that may have captured the suspect. If you have video that has captured anyone walking through your neighbourhood between 11 p.m. on April 4 to 2 a.m. on April 5, please contact the Hope RCMP.”
Rees said that, compared to her fellow tenants and landlord, she was lucky as her truly precious and valuable possessions are stored away at the homes of her family members. Instead, the only thing that truly hurt her was losing the money she’d been saving to see her children.
“I had a lot of money saved up in cash to fly my kids up here for the summer. They’re 21 and 20, they’re grown up, but I was gonna fly them out here,” Rees said. “And that’s the only thing that actually managed to hurt me.”
Despite this setback, Rees is hopeful she will be able to restart again. In the aftermath of the fire, she said she’s been blown away by the generosity, kindness, and support of the community. She is especially grateful to her boss, Carla Anderson, who has provided her a place to live until she can move into her new home June 1, which she found and secured six days after the fire. She is also grateful to her landlord (who returned her rent and gave her extra money), the fire department and police (for coming up with a game plan for her), and the Fields store and manager.
“I couldn’t have asked for a more generous response than I’ve already gotten,” Rees said. “The Deputy Fire Chief came and gave me free vouchers to replace clothes at Fields. And they went above and beyond. I know I went over the budget, and I had my bank card, and the manager wouldn’t let me pay for it. She’s like, ‘no, I am.’ She took her bank card out and paid for it.
“Like the end amount wasn’t that much but still the generosity. And I was given three vouchers for food replacement at Save-On-Foods, and offered a hotel room until the 11th. The generosity was there.”
READ MORE: Arson suspected for three fires near Othello Road
@KemoneMoodley
kemone.moodley@hopestandard.com
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