A north Nanaimo family and a downstairs tenant are temporarily homeless due to a fire in a bedroom closet Monday.
The fire happened at 2:30 p.m. in a house in the 6000 block of Sealand Road.
Ennis Mond, fire investigator with Nanaimo Fire Rescue, said a mother and three children live upstairs and a tenant lives in a basement suite.
The three children were in the living room when they smelled smoke and called 911, said Mond.
The blaze, in the bedroom closet in the youngest child's room, caused minor fire and heat damage to the closet and bedroom and smoke damage throughout the house.
"With the amount of smoke in there, it's going to take a few days to clean up," he said.
The family, who has insurance, went to stay with a relative, the owner of the fire-damaged house, and the downstairs tenant was given accommodation through the city's Emergency Social Services department.
Mond said cause of the blaze is undetermined, although it is definitely accidental.