The Bel-Air Manor apartment fire killed two people and left 38 homeless 21 years ago but investigators are hoping the passage of time will encourage witnesses to come forward with new information.
"Some of those witnesses may be more willing to talk to police now, or at least [to] Crime Stoppers," said Coquitlam RCMP Cpl. Jamie Chung.
It was just before 4 a.m. on Oct. 31, 1993 when the first 911 call reported a fire at the Bel-Air apartment building at 2191 Tyner St. in Port Coquitlam.
As the blaze raged throughout the building, residents barely escaped, mostly with little more than the clothes they were wearing. Some got out through exits and windows while others were rescued by firefighters from top-floor windows and even the rooftop.
"It was black, black, black smoke," Bel-Air resident manager Christine Quiding told The Tri-City News at the time. She got out with her two children despite the thick smoke that made it impossible to see even the door across the hall.
Resident Ron Nagy said at the time he woke up choking and escaped his second-floor suite by clambering down a firefighter's ladder while a shirtless Jean Labelle and Samantha Geldart got out with their seven-month-old daughter, Jessica, a set of car keys and one precious baby photo.
Two women didn't make it out of the building: 65-year-old Agda Louise Easingwood and Valerie Diner, 20, who was found in a hallway not far from her front door. Both victims died of smoke inhalation.
At the time, fire officials said the blaze started sometime between 3 and 4 a.m. in the building lobby and spread up the walls, moving quickly through a crawl space between the first and second floors of the 32-unit building.
Had it not been for the blaze, the Bel-Air would have celebrated its 100th anniversary last year. The First World War derailed plans for its use as the Terminal Hotel and it was later used as a residence for migrant workers, a flu epidemic hospital, a Baptist college, a dance hall and again as a hospital during the Second World War.
Investigators determined accelerants were used to deliberately set the fire but all leads to the solve the homicides later dried up, according to police, who are now renewing a call for witnesses.
Anyone who witnessed the fire or who has information about the homicides is asked to call police at 604-945-1550 and quote file number 1993-43287 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477 or www.solvecrime.ca.
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