Screams and flames shattered the quiet night when fire ripped through one house and hopped to the one next door, causing catastrophic damage to both.

Miraculously, the two families who live in the Walnut Grove homes escaped unhurt in the fire, which was discovered shortly before 2:30 a.m. on Thursday.

“It was a spectacular fire,” said Shane MacKichan, a freelance photographer who captured the scene at the height of the fire.

As neighbours spilled out onto the street, they saw flames licking the edge of the roof before it burst into flames.

“They were screaming,” MacKichan said. “It was chaos.”

At the height of the fire, 40 firefighters from Willoughby, Walnut Grove and Murrayville fought the blaze.

Township fire department spokesman Pat Walker said a resident at 8763 215B St. was awoken by a sound coming from the garage. He went downstairs to investigate and when he opened the interior garage door, saw flames. Ken and Glory Wilkinson got out of their home and immediately alerted their neighbours as well.

Meanwhile, the fire went through the roof of the garage, which is at the front of the dwelling, snaked into the soffit and burned the roof off the house. The extensive heat ignited the roof of the adjacent house at 8769 215B St. The family of this home escaped unhurt, Walker said.

One crew entered the second house, placing a positive pressure fan inside to cool the building and push the fire away.

The firefighters climbed the stairs to the second floor, broke through the ceiling to fight the flames on the roof.

Shortly after 10 a.m., Walker was the last firefighter to leave the street, leaving agents from insurance and restoration companies at the scene.

Walker said the garage where the fire started contained pottery kilns and a rare Mercedes Benz which had been restored. They were destroyed. Investigators understand that the kilns were turned off, and no one had worked on the vintage car in the hours preceding the fire, he said.

“We have completed our preliminary investigation and can’t determine a cause (at this time),” Walker said.

The first house was all but destroyed while the second house sustained less damage, Walker said. A few items may be salvageable, but the house cannot be lived in until the second floor and roof have been repaired, he added.

Langley’s Personal Disaster Assistance Team came to the scene to offer help to the families, including accommodation. For privacy reasons, Langley’s emergency co-ordinator Ginger Sherlock won’t divulge details of the help offered the two families made homeless by the fire.

Sherlock praised the families’ neighbours.

“That neighbourhood is an amazing, supportive network of neighbours helping neighbours,” Sherlock said.

“It was wonderful to see. You want to know your neighbours because in a disaster there is someone you can lean on and count on.”