A goodbye party held in the backyard of a south Burnaby home on Wednesday night took a turn for the worse when the camp fire guests were gathered around exploded.
The incident happened around 10 p.m. on May 14 in the backyard of a home in the 6000 block of 12th Avenue.
The Bottomley family was hosting a goodbye party for their son and daughter, who were supposed to leave for new jobs in Alberta on Friday.
Twenty-three-year-old Sid Bottomley’s friends, sisters and dad were all in the backyard, enjoying a campfire his dad had lit earlier that evening. When the fire began to die, Bottomley’s dad, Paul, poured an accelerant on it, as he had done many times before – but this time the fire exploded, burning Paul and three guests.
Paul and one of the guests sustained second degree burns while two others suffered third degree burns.
Bottomley said one of his friends was so badly burned she was almost naked.
“I was really shocked,” he said. “We’ve used oil before.”
Bottomley was on his way back to his family’s home on 12th Avenue near Marine Drive when the explosion happened. A fire truck passed him at a nearby three-way stop and as he got closer, he could see several police cruisers and an ambulance blocking the entrance to his house.
“There was two cop cars blocking the end of the road, and it looked like a movie scene,” he said. “There was about four or five fire trucks and eight or so police cars and two ambulances.”
According to Burnaby assistant fire chief Lane Zimmerman, the explosion (or flame-up) was indeed the result of the accelerant being poured onto the fire.
Fire investigators were expected to return to the Bottomley resident to further investigate the incident.
Bottomley’s father and one friend were released from hospital shortly after the incident, but his two friends who suffered the third degree burns are expected to be in hospital for at least a week while they are treated.
