The Sechelt Fire Department says a hot lawnmower exhaust pipe caused a July 25 fire that destroyed a garage on Wakefield Road.
Fire Chief Trevor Pike said the call came in around 6:30 p.m. and when firefighters got to the home in the 5600 block of Wakefield the garage was already fully ablaze and the fire had started to spread into the surrounding trees.
Pike said four trucks and 25 volunteers were involved in dousing the fire, which they were able to do fast enough to save the main house and keep the fire from spreading any further into the trees or to other nearby homes. The Halfmoon Bay Fire Department was also called out under the mutual aid agreement.
There were no injuries.
Pike said fire investigators determined that a lawnmower was put away in the garage still hot from being used and was placed too close to some cardboard which caught fire as a result of heat from the muffler.
“We’d like to remind people to let equipment like lawnmowers, weed eaters, chainsaws – anything that has a hot exhaust pipe – cool off before storing and to ensure the exhaust pipe isn’t in contact with any combustible materials before closing up your garage or storage shed,” Pike told Coast Reporter.
Pike also said the Sechelt department has seen an unusually high number of structure fires in July. The call on Wakefield was the fifth structure in the past three weeks.
