It was August 26th, I was browsing the internet during slack time at work. "WTF is on fire downtown??" asked someone in the /r/Vancouver subreddit, posting a picture of black smoke billowing from somewhere near the edge of Strathcona. It soon became clear that a home was on fire in that neighbourhood. As I glanced at my Facebook feed through the rest of the day, something else became clear: that I knew a person who lived in that home.

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