A8-Wednesday, October 22, 1980 - North Shore News

HE THOUGHT HE'D QUIT BUT HE'S STILL

The fastest fire fighter in town

By CHRIS LLOYD

North Vancouver City fire inspector Perry
Manns thought his days of fighting fires were
over. But when the action got hot last week he put
out a house blaze single handedly before the fire
department had even been called.

Armed with just a five-
pound CO2 extinguisher, the
fire inspector dashed around
the outside of the house at
217 East 19th. Avenue
Thursday fighting one fire
after another. He barely had
time to even pause as he
almost ran into the elderly
woman standing at the rear
door who informed him her
house was on fire, as he
burst through the basement
door to tackle the next
blaze.

It had started off as a
routine enough day. He'd
just fimshed answering a
complaint about a gas pump
filler nozzle leaking at the
service station on Lonsdale
at 14th. and was driving
along 19th. to head back to
the firehall when he saw
smoke.

Thinking he might have
stumbled onto someone
indulging in some illegal
backyard burning, Inspector
Manns decided to = in-
vestigate.

But when he reached the
front of the house, flames
were already shooting up
into the eaves.

Dinner Sp

He grabbed his small fire
extinguisher from the Car,
already resigning himself to
the fire being hopelessly
beyond its capabihties.

COULDN'T BELIEVE IT

“I hit all under the eaves
and the front of the house
and it all went out,” he said
“IT couldn't believe it.”

The flames had _ been
coming from an open
trapdoor in the floor of the
front porch and Manns said
“The CO2 extinguisher stall
wasn't quite dry so | shoved
it down the hole until it was
empty.”

Then he raced to the back
of the house, where he
encountered “a little old lady
standing on the back porch
with her arms folded and she
said “our basement
fire.”

He found her husband in
the basement, connecting up
the garden hose. grabbed i
and put the rest of the fire
out.

And still the fire depan-
ment hadn't been alerted.
“There were people wat-
ching the darn thing but
nobody called the fire

is on

ous

department,” said Manns
sull barely absorbing what
had even happened.

“When I saw the way that
thing was burning I thought
it was going to be hell but I|
couldn't believe the job that
CO? did.

“Everything under the
stairs was burning and if I
hadn't just happened by and
we had had to wait for
someone to call it would
have been a hell ofa fire.

“To have to wait the extra
two minutes for the truck to
get there I'm sure we would
have lost a lot of the front of
that house.”

Manns went to the area
where the fire had erupted
and immediately saw the
cause. A pile of wet peat
moss had been stored under
the porch and had ignited
through spontaneous
combustion, setting light to
plastic toys that the couple
kept there for their grand-
children. When the occupier
had opened the trapdoor to
let out the smoke the in-
coming air set off the fire
“like a blowtorch.”

As the fire inspector stood
there extinguishing the last
embers of the blaze, he
heard the famibe: voice of
his) fire chief. Dick
Hallaway. addressing him

from the other side of the
smoke cloud.

“Its all mght sir.” said the
chief. “The fire department's
here. We'll handle it now.’

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