District of North Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services doused flames threatening a building more than a kilometre above sea level Sunday.
Around 2 p.m., the department received a dispatch after the fire alarms were triggered at 6400 Nancy Greene Way – the street address for Grouse Mountain.
When they arrived, they were told by staff the fire was actually in the equipment rental cabin near the top of the Screaming Eagle chairlift, said assistant fire chief Jeremy Duncan.
In the summer months, the peak of Grouse is accessible via a service road at that top of Mountain Highway, but that’s not an option when there is snow, so the crews swapped their red fire engines for the red tram to the top.
Grouse staff had already smashed in the door to the cabin and hit the flames with a fire extinguisher, but the smoke was too thick so they retreated, Duncan said. When firefighters arrived at the top of the Skyride, Grouse workers met them with snowmobiles and had already run hoses to the burning building.
District crews quickly finished the job.
“We just ensured that it was extinguished and that no hot spots showed up,” Duncan said.
No one was hurt but there was “definitely damage” to the building and the gear inside, Duncan said.
“There was a lot of rental equipment in there – ski helmets, snow shoes – that kind of stuff,” he said.
The exact cause of the fire won’t be known until the investigator has finished at the scene, Duncan said, adding that much of the focus will be on the area around building’s furnace where most of the damage was.
North Van district fire crews train with Grouse Mountain staff annually, though it’s usually out of concern there will be a wildfire at the top in the summertime.
Duncan said special thanks are owed to the Grouse workers who helped keep the fire contained.
“I thought they did an awesome job,” Duncan said. “It’s worth its weight in gold to have that relationship and that training in place because it went as smoothly as you can imagine when you start 2,000 to 3,000 feet down from the fire.”
The ski resort has been closed since March thanks to the COVID-19 pandemic.
