COURTENAY -- A man sleeping in an abandoned farm building in Courtenay was lucky to escape a fire that broke out in the structure, according to a passer-by who witnessed the fire Tuesday evening.
Jeff Turner was driving along Comox Road in Courtenay and noticed smoke coming out of the trees and smelled something toxic as he passed.
After turning around, he heard somebody in trouble trying to get out of the burning building.
"I could hear a guy hacking his head off and coughing for all he was worth to get out of the building – he was inside there," Turner said.
Turner believes the homeless man had some sort of heating system set up inside the building.
"He fought his way out of the building, got out of there, pulled himself out of the ditch with his mountain bike and took off. He wouldn't stick around," he said.
Crews were called to the fire shortly before midnight. According to Cpt. Jonathan Welsh of the Courtenay Fire Department, crews were told that someone may have tried to get back into the building.
"Just due to the shrubbery and the over-growth in the area it was hard to get a 360 on the structure itself, other than that crews were able to gain entry and do a good search in there," said Welsh.
He says crews were able to determine that there was nobody inside the two-story masonry building, which Welsh believes may have at one point served as a 'lift-station' for the farm.
He says the building was hard to ventilate because it had no entry into the bottom floor. He was also concerned about what dangers the crews may have had to deal with inside.
"It's always the uncertainty of what we're going to face once we go in there, what has been either left behind or what's dangerous to the crew itself," Welsh said.
Turner is worried about the condition of the man who left before medical assistance arrived and says he has spotted the homeless man in downtown Courtenay before.
"It's part of the homeless situation and I notice the numbers are rising and it's getting worse and worse and I wish that the Canadian people could come together and find a resolve for the mental health issues and the homelessness," Turner said.
