A fire swept over two Indian Arm properties early Thursday morning, razing both a home under construction and a cottage while threatening nearby forest.
The boat-access community was awakened to the sound of airhorns alerting residents to the growing blaze, according to neighbour William Marshall.
“By the time I got outside, both houses were fully engulfed, absolutely no way of saving them,” he said. “Mount Seymour was one breath of wind away from going up as well.”
After receiving a call at 5:04 a.m., firefighters were ferried to Brighton Beach by Vancouver Fire Boat 5, which picked up the crew at a Deep Cove dock, according to District of North Vancouver assistant fire chief Jim Bonneville.
With no hydrants handy and no way of getting a fire truck to the secluded community, firefighters arrived on the scene at about 6:20 a.m. and started dousing the blaze with 900 gallons of ocean water per minute.
The fire started on a home under construction and spread to a Lynn Valley resident’s holiday cottage located approximately 100 feet up a slope.
Despite the best efforts of neighbours wielding garden hoses, the fire swelled to a width of 30 feet.
“The fire started to spread into the trees behind these two lots,” said Mairi Welman, community relations manager with the District of North Vancouver.
After the fire spread to the trees behind the lots, the B.C. Wildfire Service scrambled a Talon helicopter to dump saltwater on the blaze.The helicopter scooped water from Indian Arm with a bucket attached to 100 feet of longline, according to Peter Murray, owner of Talon Helicopters.
“If there’s a tree that’s starting to torch we can cut down some of the heat and hit (the burning tree),” Murray said.
The Brighton Beach properties are separated from forest by a mossy area which bore the brunt of the blaze, according to B.C. Wildfire Service information officer Marg Drysdale.
The fire was reduced to a smoulder by 10 a.m., according to Welman, who reported both properties were destroyed.
Fire crews were soaking underbrush and tree roots as rain came down Thursday morning.
“We were really lucky with the weather,” she said. “We don’t have that tinder-dry undergrowth.”
BC Hydro was also on the scene early in the morning to cut power to neighbouring houses along Brighton Beach. There was particular concern after a hydro pole with a transformer caught fire, Marshall said.
District of North Vancouver firefighters conducted what turned out to be a prescient drill last summer to deal with a fire igniting 100 feet up the slope on Indian Arm.
The District of North Vancouver crew made use of fireboats from Port Moody and Vancouver during the exercise.
That North Vancouver doesn’t have a fire boat “breaks our hearts,” said Marshall. “Now, whether getting there sooner would’ve done any good I don’t know.”
There have been about six fires along Indian Arm requiring fire boats in the last decade.
A fire inspector was on the scene Thursday morning to investigate the cause of the early morning fire.
