Crews were on Vancouver’s Granville Street early Monday morning fighting a fire at a 7-Eleven. Vancouver Fire Rescue Service was called to the convenience store at around 3:47 a.m. and quickly deemed it a second-alarm blaze. Parts of the street were closed as crews worked to contain the fire, impacting the intersection of Granville and Drake streets. Crews managed to contain the fire quickly, VFRS said, but it “took some time to fully extinguish as the fire made its way into the structure of the building.” Firefighters are still investigating the cause of the blaze but have since learned it originated at the back of the building. VFRS said 30 firefighters worked to extinguish the second alarm fire and reported no crew or civilian injuries. All impacted streets are now open, officials add. Frustrated ownership Siddharth Ghai is part of a group that owns the building, and he told CTV News the 7-Eleven wasn’t the only unit to sustain damage in the fire. “I got the call at 5 in the morning that there was a fire. It started over in the back and it kind of whipped over to the top, and it’s affected the actual structure of our roof,” he said. While he doesn’t have a clear timeline just yet, Ghai said the building is without power, and it will be “at least a couple of months” before the building is fully operational and the 7-Eleven can reopen. Ghai said he’s disappointed to see this kind of incident pause operations for one of his tenants, but he feels the area has been returning to status quo after being cleaned up and monitored during the FIFA World Cup. “We’re seeing an absolutely crazy amount of money being spent on the city to clean up East Hastings and look at it now; it’s back to what it was, if not worse,” he said. “We’re seeing the same problem here on Granville.” Theft was a major problem at this 7-Eleven, Ghai explained, and this fire only adds to his safety concerns. “I haven’t seen anything getting better, and it’s really frustrating for us,” he said. “I don’t feel safe here anymore; I’m trying to move away.”
