Written by: Michelle Young, News Editor
On Friday, September 11 a fire burned on the northern side of Burnaby Mountain. The Burnaby Fire Department was called at 12:20 p.m. for a fire that was “500 to 600 feet across,” according to assistant fire chief Dave Younger on Burnaby Now. The fire was located around “the site of the old Shell gas station, north of University Drive.”
Around 5 p.m., Burnaby Fire stated on Twitter, that the “fire [was] extinguished quickly by a strong initial response and highly coordinated field operations.”
Younger said that a helicopter with a fire crew was called in from Chilliwack to aid with the wildfire. It took the crew nearly an hour to locate the source, and they believe it “started below a tree fort.” The cause is currently unknown.
The Peak spoke with assistant fire chief Stew Colbourne, who stated that the fire was “difficult to get to” due to the location of the fire, which was down a cliff. Crew came in “from the bottom [of the mountain] looking up and from the top looking down” to find the source. Colbourne added that setting up hoselines in a remote area was also difficult.
Fire crews were on Burnaby Mountain “shortly after noon [ . . . ] til darkness on [September 11] and then they went back [on] the second day to check that everything was out.”
Chief Safety Officer Mark LaLonde said in an email statement to The Peak that Campus Public Safety “took direction from [the Burnaby Fire Department]” and that “at no time was there a threat to the SFU community.”
In regards to fire safety, Colbourne said “to always be safe when you’re out in the outside environments in the trails and the bushes because it’s the end of the summer and we haven’t had significant rain for sometime and any sort of ignition sources [ . . . ] could cause forest fires or fires in the bushes.”
This is a developing story that will be updated for more information as frequently as possible. If you, or someone you know, knows more information regarding this story, we’d like to hear from you. You may remain anonymous. Please reach out to news@the-peak.ca with any further information you are comfortable sharing.
