Holy shit balls! I automatically blame Russia's war on the Ukraine.

Spoiler alert: the family cat was initially thought to be deceased but was resuscitated by fire fighters. Yay!

https://vancouverisland.ctvnews.ca/f...AcAKnAl1SadaPM

Updated April 20, 2022 2:57 p.m. EDT
Published April 20, 2022 11:49 a.m. EDT

Police and firefighters are investigating after a family of five, including three children, narrowly escaped their Victoria home as it was destroyed by a suspicious fire overnight.

Yuriy Vyshnevskyy, a Ukrainian Catholic church pastor, says he woke up around 1 a.m. to his wife frantically calling out to him from the first floor of their home.


A mother, father and three children were all inside the home when the fire broke out.


She was awoken by a "gulp, gulp" sound as gasoline was being poured through the mail slot next to their front door, Vyshnevskyy said.


Before Vyshnevskyy reached the bottom of the stairs, the gasoline was set ablaze while his three daughters, ages 5, 7 and 11, slept upstairs.

Firefighters were called to the two-storey heritage home at 1112 Caledonia Ave. at 1:15 a.m. and immediately found the mother clinging to a second-storey window as the house burned.

"The flames were going from the ground level all the way to the roof," Victoria fire battalion chief Doug Carey told CTV News. "There was also a female occupant of the house clinging to the window ledge on the left side of the house here."

Firefighters attacked the flames with hoses while others got a ladder up to the window and rescued the woman from the ledge.

"The father ran down the stairs through the flames to escape the house," Carey said. "The mom woke up the children, took them into the one bedroom and shut the door behind her and then passed one child through the window to dad below, then another child down."

"The third child didn't wait," Carey said. "She jumped and was injured slightly on her way down."

Vyshnevskyy said his eldest daughter was treated in hospital for cuts she sustained from broken glass in the window frame.

The daughter who jumped received stitches and is "in good condition," Carey said. "The parents are both really shaken."


Cook Street remained closed to traffic at Caledonia Avenue on Wednesday morning, while investigators combed the scene. (CTV News)

A two-year-old tabby cat, named Tony, was found during an initial search of the building.

"He was totally unconscious, I thought he was deceased," the battalion chief said. "Our crews used a special pet resuscitation device ? it goes over the nose of the cat ? they gave him oxygen and Tony's now in stable condition at the central Victoria animal hospital."

Seventeen firefighters and six trucks responded to the blaze.


"This fire is suspicious and under investigation by Victoria police and Victoria fire," Carey said.

Cook Street remained closed to traffic at Caledonia Avenue on Wednesday morning, while investigators combed the scene.

UKRAINIAN CATHOLIC CHURCH PROPERTY

According to the Victoria Heritage Foundation, the home was completed in 1891 by renowned architect and former Victoria mayor John Teague.

The house currently belongs to the Ukrainian Catholic Church of St. Nicholas the Wonderworker, located next door.

Phone calls to the church went unanswered Wednesday morning.

With files from Robert Buffam and Kirk Duncan