An early morning blaze drew crews and trucks from four Nanaimo Fire Rescue stations to downtown Thursday, May 22, to what was thought to be a structure fire, but turned out to be a fire in a pile of demolition debris.
The alarm came in shortly before 3:30 a.m. for a blaze at the site of the former Howard Johnson Harbourside Hotel at the intersection of Comox Road and Terminal Avenue, but when firefighters arrived they discovered a pile of lumber debris fully ablaze.
Demolition at the site has been going on months and materials have been sorted and stored in piles on the site or hauled away in construction waste bins for disposal. Excavators started picking the building apart in late March and one wing of the structure has been fully torn down.
“It was basically a demo pile of debris from the demo, where they demo the building and then sort it into piles – concrete over here, wood over here – and they have piles throughout the property,” said Stuart Kenning, deputy fire chief. “It was one of the wood piles that was caught on fire.”
He said the remaining building was not threatened.
“Crews got a lot of water on it,” he said. “They put it out within two hours and they used an excavator that was on site for the demo to help put it out.”
Kenning said there is “live-in security” on the site and the fire is under investigation.
No injuries were reported.
