Man arrested after 3 escape suspicious Surrey house fire

Surrey RCMP have a man in custody after ahuge fire tore through a houseearly Saturday morning.

The firewhich police are calling suspicious happened just after 1 a.m. at 11462 142 St.

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Barbara Neuman was visiting at the house at the time. She claims another resident received a threatening phone call, and then the house quickly began fillingwith smoke.

"The back was on fire and I grabbed the garden hose and went to the back.I was trying to hose it down and it just spread too fast and caught the balconyon fire," said Neuman.

Nextdoor neighbour CarmenSterling was sleeping when she heard something outside.

"I heard somebody cursing, 'What thef---are you doing?What thef---are you doing?' about three times," said Sterling. "I looked through the back door and the light becomes bright and, like,smoke. So I had to get out of there!"

Meanwhile, Neuman was trying to use the garden house inside the burning house.

"I was trying to hose down the kitchen and save the house, but it just spread too fast," said Neuman, who warned the other people in the house to get outside."I said, 'I can't hold this fire off any more,' and things were starting to explode."

Acting Battalion Chief Brian Green said when Surrey fire crews arrived, massive flames were already shooting nine metres into the sky.

"We arrived to a fully engulfedhouse, firethrough the roof," he said."There was a lot of debris in the back. That debris caught fire as well."

Green said fire crews attacked the flames from the outside of the house, and didn't attempt to go inside once they learned that all the residents were safely outside.

63-year-old homeowner Nathan Davidowicz said he wasn't sure a petcat survived the fire. He said he had time to put on some clothes, but everything else he owns was inside the house.

Davidowicz said he wasn't sure if he'd ever be able to move back into the severely damaged home.

"Of course the insurance company has to assess it, but it looks like the upper floor is completely destroyed, the basement and the main floor, maybe not."

Police investigation

Surrey RCMPis investigating the fire, which is considered suspicious.

"Oh, the house that burned is a problem house," said Sterling. "The police knows about it, it's no secret, because they called to it a lot of times."

Anyone with information about the incident is asked to contact Surrey RCMP at 604-599-0502 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.