It took 40 firefighters and nearly 12 hours to knock down a bush fire on the north side of Burnaby Mountain that a local assistant fire chief said could have been devastating had it been able to spread.
Around 9:10 a.m. on Sunday, firefighters were alerted of a smoke plum billowing from atop Burnaby Mountain. When they arrived, crews determined the fire was coming from a dense area of bush north of University Drive East and Cardiac Hill, which is a steep offshoot of the Trans Canada Trail.
“The fire was approximately 500 to 600 feet off the roadway, down the hill, into the forest. It wasn’t right off the trail. They had to do some foraging into the forest,” said Rick Weir, assistant fire chief for the Burnaby Fire Department.
By the time firefighters arrived at the scene, the fire was growing quickly and had started to climb into the canopy of tree tops above, Weir noted.
Even though the fire was relatively small compared to fires in other areas of the province, the Burnaby Mountain fire could have been a lot worse had it not been dealt with so quickly, Weir said.
“This one had the potential to be quite devastating,” Weir said. “It had the potential to become like the ones we’re seeing on television right now.”
Crews acted quickly and doused the flames with water to prevent the blaze from spreading through the canopy, Weir said.
“(That) was extremely beneficial because once the fire gets up into canopy like that, it starts travelling quite quickly,” he added.
Once the canopy fire was put out and firefighters went to work on the ground fire. Reinforcements from the Coastal Fire Centre, part of B.C. Wildlife Service, and Metro Vancouver were called in to assist the 31 Burnaby firefighters already on the scene.
Once the fire was out, firefighters crawled through the area on their hands and knees feeling for any remaining hot spots.
“Anything they found was dealt with immediately,” Weir said.
After that, it was decided that some of the trees, damaged by the fire, needed to be removed in order to do a final thorough check of the area so a group of tree fallers from Hope were brought by helicopter to Burnaby Mountain. The fallers knocked down about eight to 10 burnt trees, Weir said.
“After the trees had been dropped, then our crews went back into the forest and continued extinguishing all the fires from within the tops of the trees,” he added.
It took firefighters nearly 12 hours to put out the fire and check for any other burning in the area. The “long and drawn out affair” wrapped up around 9 p.m., but even then two trucks remained on scene throughout the night for some intermittent spraying and to keep an eye out for any flares up. On Monday morning, two Burnaby crews returned to ensure the fire was completely out.
The cause of the fire remains unknown at this time. There had been some speculation that homeless campers or squatters were to blame, but Weir said crews found no evidence of people living in the bush surrounding the blaze.
Firefighters responded to a smaller fire at the Cornerstone Mews bus loop that seemed to have been caused by ash. Whether ash from that fire had travelled into the bush and sparked the fire on the mountain, Weir couldn’t speculate.
Brush fires and other wild land fires have kept Burnaby firefighters busy since the hot, dry weather started. Weir himself has responded to five brush fires during his past three shifts. Residents are reminded to be extra cautious during the dry weather. Everything is tinder dry and even the smallest of spark could spread quickly, Weir said.
Open burning is prohibited in Burnaby all-year round, except with a permit from the fire chief. This includes any fire in an outdoor fireplace, portable incinerator or portable burner.
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