The Burnaby Fire Department is reminding residents not to smoke or cook in any of Burnaby’s tinder-dry parks after a 1,000-square-foot duff fire in the middle of Central Park Friday morning (Aug. 11).
Firefighters were called to the middle of the park at about 7:15 a.m.
Upon arrival, they found about 1,000 square feet of the forest floor smouldering with lots of smoke but no flames showing.
“It was right in the middle of the trees,” assistant fire Chief Gavin Summers told the NOW. “It could have been very, very bad.”
Five trucks responded, and 15 firefighters worked until 11 a.m. to extinguish the fire with hoses, shovels and wildland fire backpacks.
“They’re backpacks full of water and there are pumps on the bottom of them to spray on areas where there’s fire,” Summers said. “It’s just to get into areas that we can’t reach with our hoses, any rough terrain.”
The fire department notifies the Coastal Fire Centre of any wildland fire bigger than 400 square feet, according to the assistant fire chief.
He said the blaze Friday was a Rank 1 wildfire, described as a smouldering ground fire.
Had it escalated to a Rank 2 or 3 blaze, with flames showing and starting to ignite the bottoms of trees, the department would have called Coastal Fire for help.
That happened a few years ago, Summers said, when aircraft were called in to drop water on a serious wildfire on Burnaby Mountain.
The fire department doesn’t want to see that happen again.
“There’s an extreme fire risk in the parks right now,” Summers said. “We just want to remind people that there can be no cooking of any kind in the park and no smoking at all right now.
The cause of Friday’s fire is still under investigation, according to the assistant chief.
He wouldn’t speculate on whether it was sparked by homeless people known to camp in the park.
