The pager went off at 3:30AM the other night with a call out to a "fully involved structure fire". I arrived at the hall, jumped into my turnout gear, and got onto the first truck out of the bays. We got to the scene about 10 minutes after the page went out. Not bad for 3:30AM.We arrived to a classic and well known Hornby house fully engulfed in flames. We were unable to drive the truck any closer that 800ft from the burning house because of various obstructions in the driveway so we pulled 800ft of hose and immediately got water flowing.
Sadly, it was way too late to do anything to actually save the house. The roof and floors had already collapsed. There was no drywall and very little insulation in the house and it was made of tinder dry cedar. It took until 10AM until we had the fire out and cleared the scene to head back to the hall for another few hours of cleanup and repacking.
This is a picture of the inside of the house before it burned. It had a central post around which loft rafters were bolted to hold up a second floor which spiraled higher has you went around.The house was featured in Lloyd Khan's book "Builders of the Pacific Coast". I took these photos from Lloyd's 'blog.
Watching this building reduced to a pile of embers and scrap roofing was an incredibly sad experience for me. The sight of someone's grand project... the product of their blood and sweat... destroyed in under 30 minutes is something that will stay with me forever.
1 comment:
Wow, after narrowly escaping the Kitsilano neighbourhood fire of 2005 I'm chilled to the bone about this news. Luckily the firemen saved my house and studio. Unfortunately, four houses on my block were not so lucky.
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