FRIDAY July 12, 1996

BY !AN NOBLE News Reporter

WENDY Wong woke up at 4:30 a.m. Thursday morn- ing to her six-year-old son’s assertion that the house was wet.

Indeed. it w

Wong peered into the darkness out- side her home. A fire truck sat in the Jane behind her Chesterfield Avenue ground-floor apartment. A hose snaked away from the site.

Wong approached a fireman beside the pump truck, who told her there was a fire on 19th Street.

“Really.” she replied. “Is that why there’s two inches of water in my house?”

Her neighbor, Mark Philip, had a similar wake-up call. The fire depart- ment knocked on his door at about the same time to inform him of a very localized flood.

“T took wo steps from the bed and was walking in water.” he said.

See Damp page 4

NEWS photo Terry Petore

‘RICK Smith’s belongings got soaked while tirernen fought a major blaze on 19th Street in North Vancouver City.

1996 GMC JIMMY a as!

60 Mariiie Drive, W. Van 965-9333

NEWS photos Terry Peters

ALEX and handler Simon Jung search for accelerants Thursday morning

after a fire raged through a fou same morning. A smaller caper

(right). RCMP officers put out that fire.

BY IAN NOBLE News Reperter

AN early Thursday morning blaze gut- ted three duplexes under construction in North Vancouver as one worried neighbor soaked his roof to keep fist-sized sparks from igniting his

=

house.

The in the 200- block of West 19th Street also blackened a fourth duplex and a neighboring

as the likely on

17th Street. on has not been ruled out in the 19th Street fire. “We're treating it like an arsun and as a crime

r-duplex complex on 19th Street at 2:30 the fire burned in a lane behind 17th Street

Arson suspected

in No

scene until we've ruled it out.” said Dave Burgess North Vancouver City fir department's chief of fire prevention,

Burgess estimated dam- age from the blaze at over $250.000 at 10 am. Thursday, just before he was to start looking over the fire scence in an attempt to determine the fire’s cause and origin.

Burgess said: fire ers received a call at 2:26:54 a.m. Thursday morning of af in the 100-block of West) 17th. But before trucks could leave for that fire, calls about the fire on 19th poured in.

Burgess said that city firefighters arrived te see one bu ablaze

th Van blaze

and a second on its wity. The duplexes had rvofs and were framed. but hed no fire separation or glaz- ing. “Bas it We have a made of wood all stacked nice and neat so they burn quickly.” said Burgess. Firefighters concentrat- ed on preventing the fire trom spreading to an oecu- pied house to the gust. Burgess said the 19th Street fire may have been the cause of a paper fire in the fane in the [00-block of 17th Street. “We've received reports of flaming embers in people's yards so itis possible,” he added. Sharon Anderson, who lives on 18th Street behind the burned duplexes. cafled 9-1-1 after hearing the

Weather

Saturday: Sunny and hot High 35°C, low 14°C. 4

“He was incredible. incredible. It went so and so high in the air.” she id. “On our back porch we could feel the heat.” Phillip Schiller, Anderson's neighbor, the flames were shooting 20 feet into the air and sparks and ashes climbed 200 feet or more. Schiller removed his car from the back lane and then began spraying his roofa ual tite fists of flames” land- ed. “H's been dry fora few days,” he said. “S figured it wouldn't take much to catch the roof on fire.” Anderson said she was frustrated because — she couldn't see the fi and figured the fire depart-

Pa

ment wasn't listening. The fire burned between her house and the front of 19th Street.

Burgess said a fire (ruck was dispatched at 2:31:48 and arrived at the scene at 2:34:13. He said the 19th Street fire could have start- ed before the [7th Street fire. “This fire could have been burning 10 to 15 min- utes before we gota cad” he said of the 19th: Street blaze. Considering the eight: men and two pumpers the city fire department had to fight the Names, firefighters did a good job, said Burgess. A third pumper from the dis- trict also helped out. RCMP officers doused the [7th Street fire.