Fire officials suspect a cigarette butt is to blame for a blaze in the siding of a house near Bowen Park Friday evening.
Ennis Mond, fire investigator with Nanaimo Fire Rescue, said the fire started in the alcove outside the front door of a house in the 600 block of First Street just before 11:30 p.m. and luckily, the owner of the house and her daughter were home at the time and noticed quickly.
"They could hear a crackling sound and they went and looked and the one side of the alcove was on fire," he said. "If they didn't notice it, there would have been a major house fire. They were very lucky in the sense that if they were sleeping, the fire would have gone up into the roof and burnt the roof off."
The fire damaged the door as well as one side of the alcove. The owner of the house has insurance.
Mond is still investigating, but suspects the fire is related to smoking – the mother and daughter confirmed that they had had company earlier in the evening and people were out on the deck smoking.
He said he remembers attending a deck fire at the same house years ago.