When three Surrey police officers arrived at a suspicious house fire on Wednesday morning, they did not hesitate to spring into action.
Const. Gideon Damong, Const. Jared Cebryk and Const. Manpreet Nijjar were on their way to another call when they were dispatched to the fire at 145 Street near 64th Avenue, as they happened to be near the area.
“We were practically on location because without knowing what the address was, we looked to our right and there was just flames going up in the air,” Nijjar told Global News.
They saw the front of the house engulfed in flames with two vehicles burning in the driveway, but the tenants remained inside, Nijjar recalled.
“Our immediate instinct was to run towards the house,” she said.
Nijjar recounted their immediate response to the fire.
Get daily National news
“So we got on scene and our first thing was, okay, we gotta get everybody out because the fire was pretty much exploding. There was a lot of pops going off,” she told Global News.
“So we went to the side gate first. We get in, kicked the gate down. So we go to the bottom, we knocked on all the windows and we got the tenants out.”
The tenants told the officers an elderly pair were still upstairs and likely need help getting out.
The officers rushed into the home to bring the senior pair to safety.
“We knew time was of the essence,” said Damong.
They spotted the seniors by the stairs. Damong described, “a lot of smoke down the stairs through the front.”
Cebryk recalled an elderly woman laying on the stairs.
“We think that she was trying to get out the front door, but at this point, the smoke and fire had gotten too big,” Cebryk said.
Nijjar said the flames were near the door, which made the seniors “confused and super hesitant to come outside.”
“We knew we had to act – it was it was now or never,” said Damong.
The officers were able to safely evacuate the pair out of the home.
Damong said this was the first time that he put himself in physical danger as an officer.
“We just saw the elderly people upstairs looking at the fire and our focus was to get them out of there because they … they kind of got stuck out looking at the fire,” Damong described.
As the community continues to praise the officers for their bravery, they say that their duty and commitment is to help and protect.
“We’re here to do a job, and that job sometimes is dangerous – I’m happy we were able to help,” said Cebryk.
Nijjar added, “We’re first responders and it’s our job to protect life.”
The front of the house and the two vehicles remain heavily damaged and the fire continues to be under investigation as a possible arson.
Comments