A fire on Nancy Greene Drive set off blue and white flames, destroyed property and ate away at trees last Friday afternoon.
“It was a flashy fire with a lot of black smoke and large flames,” said Ian Baikie, deputy fire chief. “When I arrived it was rocking and rolling.”
Baikie said firefighters were called to the 700 block of Nancy Greene at 3:50 p.m. and were on scene by 4 p.m.
“A shed was quite involved when we arrived and we struggled to prevent it from getting into some trees,” Baikie said.
He said the fire started in a shed behind the house and spread to the back of an old cedar fence bordering two properties, destroying part of the fence and burning the trunks of some full-size fir trees in the process. Baikie said a fire investigator could not determine the exact cause of the fire but said there are two possibilities.
“We found an extension cord out there which the homeowner said went to a light,” Baikie said. “There could have been something left on the cord and it (the cause) could have been electrical.”
He also said it’s possible the fire may have been started by a cigarette. Although the homeowner was not home at the time of the fire, Baikie said a couple of people were in the shed smoking before they left the house. Baikie said because the shed was covered in a rubber pond liner, “it made for a hot, smoky fire.” He also said the shed was full of camping gear, including some propane tanks, which caused three different small explosions.
Baikie said it took 10 firefighters, with two fire engines, about 20 minutes to put out the fire. Neighbours on Ralph Hutton, which runs parallel to Nancy Greene, also pitched in by bringing their garden hoses to the back fence. Baikie said no one was injured in the blaze and there was no damage to any homes.