Burnaby firefighters didn’t hesitate to send crews to help their New Westminster neighbours when the call came in that part of the Royal City’s historic downtown core was on fire.
At about 4 a.m. on Thursday, Oct. 8, Burnaby received a call alerting the department to a blaze at 634 Columbia St. In response, the department sent five fire trucks and 20 firefighters to provide assistance if needed, Assistant Fire Chief Darryl Smith told the Burnaby NOW.
“We’ve been on standby in New West since about 4 o’clock this morning,” he said on Thursday.
Burnaby, which was called in along with Delta Fire to help with the firefighting efforts, responded to fire alarms going off in surrounding buildings in the downtown core.
When Smith arrived in New Westminster Thursday morning, the E.L. Lewis building at Columbia and Mackenzie streets had already collapsed and New Westminster crews were working hard to keep the fire contained to as few buildings as possible.
“There was a lot of a smoke, it’s a major fire incident. There’s a lot of damage,” he recalled.
While New West firefighters battled the blaze, Burnaby firefighters responded to fire alarms going off in other buildings in the area.
“We (responded) to a building fire in a highrise, and all it was really was residual smoke from the fire on Columbia,” Smith said.
For more information on the fire in New Westminster, visit the NOW’s sister paper, The Record, at www.royalcityrecord.com.
