Displaced Winnipeg family says fire that gutted home was caused by e-bike

A family has been forced to find a new home after the house they rented in Winnipeg was completely gutted in a fire that they say was caused by an electronic bike.

Catherine Beardy says she, her five young children and two of her brothers had to flee the two-storey house on Toronto Street where she had been living for about two years on Thursday night.

The city says the cause of the fire is still under investigation, but Beardy says it began once one of the batteries of the two e-bikes the family uses to commute suddenly burst into flames.

"I came down; the bike was engulfed and shooting out battery acid," she said. "I ran upstairs to get my kids, and when we came down it was already black and all lit up — and I couldn't get my dogs."

Snowflake and Snowball, two white bulldogs that Beardy says grew up with her children, died in the fire.