Light bulbs and televisions exploded, electrical outlets caught fire and smoke detectors melted in an unusual fire in Gibsons last week.
The fire started around noon on Saturday, April 3, when a B.C. Hydro line connected to a home on South Fletcher Road dropped unexpectedly, seriously increasing the voltage in the home.
"Anything that was plugged in was subjected to some seriously high voltage," said Gibsons Fire Chief Bob Stevens. "Usually you see this kind of thing where a tree may have been close to the line rubbing up against it, wearing it away. But there was nothing near this line. It just gave out."
Melanie Hamilton, one of the renters of the house, and her two-month-old baby were home at the time of the fire. She recalls running out the door with her infant, while calling 911 on her cell phone.
"Luckily I had my cell phone with me, because the phone in the house blew too," Hamilton said.
Her cousin rents the downstairs portion of the home with her husband and their new baby. Hamilton quickly made sure they were getting out of the house too.
"I saw her at the door trying to get her dog on a leash and holding her two-month-old baby in one arm, while the apartment was filling with smoke," Hamilton said.
The two women and their babies got out safely. The fire department arrived seven minutes later and quickly shut off the power to the home, stopping the fire from spreading. Then they went inside and pulled some of the walls apart to make sure there was no fire behind them.
"It was really scary. I wasn't sure what had happened," Hamilton said.
Stevens said the home had minor damage to electrical outlets set ablaze from the high voltage, light bulbs that had burst and a smoke detector that "worked for a moment but then caught fire and melted."
But Hamilton said she's now homeless, staying in a hotel with her baby, while her cousin is trying to stay with family.
"They said we can't go back until they fix the electrical. We don't know when we'll be able to go back exactly, but I hope it will be within the month," she said.
Stevens said the occupants were lucky there wasn't more damage.
"Had this been at a different time of day, when no one was home, it could have been a lot worse," he noted.
The Gibsons Fire Department doesn't respond to many of these types of calls, said Stevens. He said B.C. Hydro doesn't check the lines until an incident like this occurs, probably because there are too many lines on the Coast to check, so home owners should keep an eye on the lines.
"It's important to have trees pruned so they are not rubbing on the lines - that's what usually happens," he said.
But in this case the lines were clear, and Stevens isn't exactly sure why the line broke.
B.C. Hydro's Brian Johnson said he is not able to comment on what happened because it is "still under investigation."
Hamilton is hopeful the hydro company will compensate her for hotel expenses and property damage, because although she has content insurance, she would have to pay a "big deductible" to replace all the items damaged by fire or smoke.
