Eliot Jones from Summerhill (right) with the two other men who helped stop the fire spreading.

Local man hailed a hero in Canada blaze

A 24 year-old Summerhill man who moved to Vancouver in Canada just six weeks ago is being hailed as a hero after helping to prevent a fire spreading through his neighbourhood.
Eliot Jones travelled with four other college friends to Canada seeking work and the travel experience and are sharing a house in a residential area of the city in British Columbia, where most homes are timber-built.
Eliot came out of his house last Thursday morning to see flames licking the cedar-sided wall of the neighbouring home on West 14th Street.
“I saw the flames on the wall, and I grabbed a garden hose and started spraying it,” he told the local Global News TV channel.
Eliot knew that there were children living in one of the apartments in the house, but luckily they were not there at the time.
Their delighted mother, Callie Bland, paid tribute to Eliot and his friends who went into the house to ensure that the children were not in the house when they saw the fire.
She said: “He climbed in the window to make sure my kids weren’t inside. Then they put out the fire - I think it’s amazing.”
Another woman who lived in the basement apartment with her children was alerted, and they got out before the flames could take hold.
Firefighters who arrived on the scene also paid tribute to Eliot and two Saudi passers-by who stopped to help, saying they did the right thing. They other men explained how they stood up on a chair to spray the water hoses on the higher part of the fire.
Firefighter battalion chief, Brian Simonson, explained that nobody had been hurt and everybody was alerted very quickly and got out safely. “We’re very grateful for that,” he added.

There were concerns that, because all the houses in the area are buillt of timber, that the fire could have sporead to other properties quickly.

See a clip of Eliot's interview with local TV station Global News by clicking on the link below

http://globalnews.ca/video/712499/fire-heroes