A quick-thinking witness may have stopped a trailer fire on Saturna Island from spreading to highly flammable fertilizer and a fuel storage container.
Volunteer firefighters with the Saturna Island Fire Protection Society got a call around 2:09 p.m. Sunday that a trailer was on fire on East Point Road, next to the Arbutus Campground. The trailer is home to a garden shop called Darryl’s Digs.
The person who made the 911 call broke one of the trailer’s windows and starting spraying the flames with a fire extinguisher, said Fire Chief Brent Sohier. The deputy fire chief arrived on scene and attacked the flames with another extinguisher.
Five minutes later, the first fire engine was on scene and crews began an exterior attack. The fire was contained to the front part of the garden shop and the fertilizer in the back part of the shop did not catch fire, Sohier said.
“It would have been ugly if it spread to the back end,” he said.
The quick response prevented the fire from spreading to the above ground gasoline storage containers 50 metres away, Sohier said.
“That would be have the major concern had the wind been blowing in the right direction,” he said.
The cause of the fire has not yet been determined.
