The towering Saanich townhouse blaze with its 25-metre flames that seared neighbouring homes was just waiting to happen, a Saanich building inspector said Tuesday.
Graham Barbour, Saanich manager of inspection and bylaw services, said the exposed lumber of the three-storey building, which was under construction, was at a stage long recognized by builders and safety officials as a fire risk.
“It was at that vulnerable point, where there was this enormous fuel load lying exposed and none of the safety requirements are in place,” he said.
“It’s really just a bonfire that is going to happen if something goes wrong.”
The fire erupted Sunday evening in the 4000 block of Cedar Hill Road. Fire officials and police are investigating it as suspicious.
Flames fed by raw lumber and exploding propane tanks were unimpeded by any fire-resistant building materials such as drywall.
The conflagration was so hot, it melted aluminum siding on homes across the street more than 60 metres away, along with the lights of a fire truck.
Barbour said most of the building-code safety requirements for construction projects concern things like ensuring vehicles exit or enter a site safely, or preventing people from falling into holes.
They are mostly silent on fire risk, particularly for unfinished wood-frame buildings, when the lumber is exposed.
Barbour said builders and government officials have long discussed the fire hazards of buildings when they are at that vulnerable phase, touching on ideas such as mandatory hose stands to connect fire hoses, or temporary sprinkler systems to stop blazes before they spread. But those discussions have not made their way into building codes, said Barbour.
The danger will only grow more acute as B.C. embarks on a new era in construction techniques, erecting wood-frame buildings as high as 18 storeys — like one going up at the University of British Columbia.
Building codes were amended in 2009 to allow wood-frame buildings to exceed four storeys, part of the B.C. Wood First Act. At the time, fire officials voiced concerns that their ladders might have difficulty reaching the top of some new wood buildings.
In 2011, the first six-storey wood-frame building in B.C., a development in Richmond, burned down during construction. The B.C. government brushed aside safety concerns at the time, saying any building under construction doesn’t have its fire-safety features installed yet.
The B.C. Housing Ministry said Tuesday in an email that the provincial and national building codes have stringent fire-safety requirements and no changes are being contemplated.
Meanwhile, Saanich police and fire investigators continued on Tuesday to investigate the cause of the Cedar Hill Road townhouse fire.
Saanich police spokeswoman Sgt. Julie Fast said an excavator arrived Tuesday afternoon, but it’s expected to be several days before it digs down to a layer where investigators can conduct a proper analysis.
At least four townhouse units on the Cedar Hill site — in separate completed buildings — were damaged, and a number of others are uninhabitable because they don’t have power and water restored yet.
Fast said at least 14 people have been displaced, with some staying in hotels and others with friends or family.
Saanich Deputy Fire Chief Steve Hanna said the timing of the fire on Sunday evening, when nobody was on the site, is suspicious.
The fire blazed very fiercely, very fast. “It was extremely hot,” he said. “It was just a naked open pile of wood and obviously a fire can get going really fast.”
