Dry conditions spark several brush fires in West Vancouver
Posted June 26, 2015 12:01 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
WEST VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – We’ve been warned of the dangers in this dry heat and now we’ve learned from West Vancouver firefighters that they’ve dealt with four brush fires so far today. Two were in residential neighbourhoods — one was behind Park Royal, and the other on the Upper Levels.
Assistant Fire Chief Jeff Bush believes people not extinguishing cigarettes are to blame. “Smokers, please be very careful and diligent — do not discard your cigarettes into gardens and planters, use an ashtray. To the residents, please be very diligent and vigilant. If you see smoke, call us immediately.”
He adds that message is for everyone province-wide.
Bush says it’s lucky the fires didn’t spread. There wasn’t any major damage.
Meantime in Surrey, crews are seeing the same thing — they’ve had more brush fires this year, than last. “Just from today, we’ve had six brush fires,” says Assistant Chief Steve Robinson.
“Many of the fires we have are smaller fires, they’re on medians, they’re in the bark mulch areas and I’m going to say a lot of those fires are attributed to improperly discarded cigarettes.”
He says it’s a major drain on resources to have firefighters dealing with small, preventable blazes and it could make response times to more serious calls even longer.
