The massive fire in downtown Maple Ridge on Friday night showered charred debris for blocks.
The environmental effects of the blaze may be less visible, but potentially more dangerous.
Those living close to the burning apartment buildings at Edge and Brown Streets said it was raining fire. A man who owns a property off 129th Avenue, north of the Alouette River, said there was debris at his place that looked like melted fibreglass.
Don Jolley, a former Pitt Meadows fire chief who now plays a key role in training B.C. firefighters, said the widespread debris is not surprising. He is now the director of the fire and safety division at the Justice Institute.
“Big fires like that almost generate their own weather,” he said. “The rising heat column can carry debris for quite a distance.”
In the day or so after the blaze, Maple Ridge fire department advised people to only handle the debris with gloves, and Jolley reiterated that advice, and added people should avoid inhaling or trying to smell any materials.
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The city deployed a street sweeper to collect debris on the road network to keep it from going into the storm sewers.
One resident posted online that she had collected two garbage bags of burnt material from her property, and asked how it should be disposed of?
City staff have been cleaning up debris that was carried into the air in public spaces, such as parks and playgrounds, and disposing of the debris using gloves and dispose with regular garbage, and that is the advise to the public.
Because the Edge 3 condo building, which burned to the ground was just framed, it would contain less material that’s toxic when burned than a finished building. However, the fire also damaged the nearby Edge 2 building, which was fully occupied, along with two nearby houses.
Some of those materials that burned would be “potentially highly toxic,” Jolley noted.
He said the water used to put out the fire is also potentially toxic, and said testing of groundwater may be necessary afterward, and potential testing for other environmental effects.
“There can be impacts beyond simply the fire,” he said. “Locally, it can be significant.”
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City hall said the majority of the water was collected in the underground parking structure of the building where the fire started, and the apartment building to the north. That water is being pumped out into the sanitary sewer system, where it goes through a screen to filter out large debris, and the waste water will be filtered, along with regular sanitary waste, through the Metro Vancouver sewage treatment system.
The city’s environmental staff will be conducting inspections of storm water outfalls for the storm sewers in the impacted area to determine if any debris has moved into the natural environment, and take the appropriate measures, said city spokesperson Pardeep Purewal.
The city has also engaged an external environmental professional to assess if there are any long term impacts from the fire response and debris plume.
Also of concern to many fire protection professionals, said Jolley, is the hazard represented by having a wood structure under construction with no sprinklers installed – it is a huge load of fuel, with no fire protection.
“They become an extremely dangerous fire hazard,” he said. “As you see in the Maple Ridge fire, they are susceptible to very rapid fire spreading.”
He said a solution proposed by fire chiefs is to have the builder’s sprinkler system installed early and in phases, as the “stick” building is constructed.
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