Two houses destroyed by fire in a week

In the second fire in a week, a house on Peltier Drive was destroyed on the morning of May 15. “By the time [firefighters] got there, the flames were coming through the roof,” said fire chief Christopher Carleton, speaking from a fire fighting conference in Phoenix, Arizona.

“We got there pretty fast,” he said, adding, “Assistant fire chief John Shields was first on scene and followed by the engine. We had a crew on duty this morning at the hall.” Carleton said the response had been slowed by the fact that the person calling in the fire by cellphone had connected with the emergency dispatch service in B.C. and it took time to be transferred to What-Comm 911 in Bellingham. He reminded residents to use the full phone number (360/676-6911) when using a cellphone to report emergencies in Point Roberts.

Carleton said the single-story home located at 1361 Peltier Drive was destroyed and the cause “looks suspicious.” Crews worked “defensively” to protect the house to the west of the burning house, he said. A final determination of the cause of the fire would be issued by the Whatcom County fire marshal. According to assistant fire chif John Shields, as of May 29 fire marshal Tiffany Honey had not het determined what started either of the two blazes.

More details on the Edwards Drive fire

Not much was left after a fire that destroyed a home at 1641 Edwards Drive on May 8. During salvage operations, firefighters were “able to recover (although burnt) hundreds of family photos and personal items including clothing for the owner,” according to chief Carleton.

The chief reported that the department had received a dispatch call at 9:39 a.m. and the first unit, Battalion 58, arrived on scene at 9:43, followed by Engine 58 at 9:55. Delta Engine 2 from Tsawwassen was dispatched at 10:09 and arrived at 10:20 after a request for mutual aid was sent out. North Whatcom dispatched its apparatus at 10:30 and arrived at 11:06.

Flames were already coming through the roof by the time the first responders were on scene and firefighters were forced to fight the fire defensively to avoid neighboring homes from going up in flames. The structure to the west suffered minor damage to the windows and siding closest to the flames but was otherwise spared.

Carleton expressed satisfaction with his crew’s performance and said they had performed well on both fires.