An entire warehouse could have collapsed into the Fraser River, if not for two Steveston Harbour Authority workers on their fire boat.
According to the harbour’s general manager, Jaime Da Costa, a loading wharf was completely destroyed and the warehouse partly ruined in a blaze Saturday evening, which caused the Richmond Maritime Festival to close early.
The building that caught fire, said Da Costa, is actually the old Colonial Cannery building, built in 1895. Thankfully, she added, only a small portion will need repairs.
Things could have been worse, she said, had the harbour not deployed its firefighting boat, operated by Jim Jones and Carl Lund, two harbour authority employees.
“These are two everyday heroes for us,” said Da Costa.
Without the boat and additional help from Royal Canadian Marine Search and Rescue, Da Costa said Richmond Fire Rescue told her the entire warehouse could have collapsed into the river.
“Without that effort, things could have been a lot worse,” she said.
Firefighters quickly contained the fire that ripped through the Paramount docks of the harbour authority at around 5 p.m. as visitors to Steveston enjoyed festivities at the nearby Britannia Heritage Shipyard.
By 5:30 p.m., thick black smoke billowed from the dock and the adjacent warehouse full of fishing gear.
Deputy Fire Chief Tim Wilkinson told the Richmond News 19 firefighters responded to the one-alarm blaze and quickly isolated it.
However, due to the creosote on the docks, there were stubborn spot fires that required extra attention. The creosote also played a part in the City of Richmond closing the festival early over air quality concerns.
“The dock is quite badly damaged,” said Wilkinson, who added that a preliminary investigation points to a possible electrical fire sparking the blaze.
“The building isn’t damaged too badly. It was going quite well by the time the crews got on the scene.
“The creosote holds the fire. That takes a longer time to put out the spot fires.”
There were no reported injuries, said Wilkinson. This was the third major fire at the harbour this year, said Da Costa. Steveston fire pic.twitter.com/spjhW0Isqz
— Amanda Hill (@AhillbcAmanda) August 13, 2017
