Inferno in North Burnaby

By Dan Hilborn
Published Aug. 26, 2006


Burnaby police and fire investigators are trying to determine the cause of a Thursday night fire that closed three businesses and forced the evacuation of several second-floor apartments at the corner of Hastings and Gilmore.

While nobody was seriously injured in the fire, eyewitnesses told radio station CKNW that a young man ran into one of the two affected buildings to rescue an elderly woman living in an upstairs suite. Reports from the scene also indicate that another of the evacuated tenants was an artist who lost his "life's work" in the blaze.

Burnaby assistant fire chief Les Strange described the incident as "a dirty fire" and said a total of 38 firefighters and 10 trucks were needed to battle the inferno.

"This was a commercial building with fire stops, and that meant our firefighters had to work to gain access inside the walls," Strange said Friday morning.

The fire has closed the HSBC Bank, Millennium Pawn Shop and Planet Hair Studio. The neighbouring Pear Tree Restaurant, one of the finest five-star restaurants in the Lower Mainland, appeared to be undamaged.

The three-alarm fire was first reported at 10:15 p.m. by a passing motorist who immediately stopped her vehicle and pounded furiously on the front doors of Fire Station No. 5, located just one block east.

While the person who reported the fire did send an e-mail to the Burnaby NOW claiming the fire department's response was inadequately slow, attempts to speak directly to that person prior to Burnaby NOW's Friday morning deadline were unsuccessful.

Strange said that a full incident report is being conducted and he believes it will show that firefighters were out of the hall and on the scene within five minutes.

"When somebody is in an emergency situation, they typically think time is going really fast, when in reality it's usually only a few minutes," he said. "This incident, with the fire being that close to the hall, I think the arrival time was within the three- to five-minute range."

Strange said that firefighters always have an established protocol they must follow before leaving the hall to fight a fire, and that includes putting on their gear and checking the major incident response charts to determine the size and location of all the nearby fire hydrants and possible hazards. In this incident, the local firefighters would have also had the added responsibility of reporting the fire to the main fire hall on Sperling Street, an added step to the usual protocols, Strange said. "If they were out the door in 90 seconds, that would be a good job," he said.

Amateur photographer Frank Yeats-Illes, who shot the photo accompanying this story, said his wife was standing on the couple's apartment balcony at Hastings and Madison when she suddenly saw flames shoot into the sky.

"In a matter of minutes it was a huge inferno," Yeats-Illes said. "It took a few minutes before we could hear the alarm bells ringing, but it seemed the fire department got it under control pretty quick."

Yeats-Illes also said that he was surprised by the large numbers of onlookers who showed up to watch the firefighters at work.

Police were forced to reroute traffic off Hastings Street throughout the night, and although fire crews officially finished battling the blaze by around 4:15 a.m., eastbound traffic was still being diverted onto Pender Street during the Friday morning rush hour.

Investigators are now asking for the public's help in determining whether the fire was accidental or deliberately set. Anyone with information is asked to call CrimeStoppers at 1-800-222-8477.