Forbidden Plateau house fire spreads to nearby trees

CHEK
WatchA Friday morning fire near an old ski hill west of Courtenay burned an old A-frame cabin to the ground and spread into the nearby forest.

Tenants of a cabin on Forbidden Plateau tried to save the burning building Friday morning with a neighbour’s garden hose but were forced to give up when the fire became too intense.

“And he actually he had it down to just sparks. And then twenty minutes later they came over and he says we’re letting her go because it was in the walls and stuff,” said Dale Ostgard who lives next door. “It was very warm and loud. It lit up the whole street here.”

Ostgard says the fire started with a woodstove that caught the chimney on fire. It eventually spread to the walls and roof before firefighters from Courtenay arrived. The fire was reported at around 3 a.m.

The blaze was outside the Courtenay Fire Protection Area but firefighters were brought in to keep the flames from spreading into a major forest fire.

The old A-frame cabin that’s been here on Forbidden Plateau since the late 1960s or early 1970s was reduced to a pile burning ashes.

No one was injured.

“Just a good thing there was no wind otherwise we’d have a forest fire,” added Ostgard. “The sparks were going up taller than these trees and straight up.”

A wildfire crew from the Coastal Fire Centre was also on the scene monitoring the situation.

To further illustrate how dry it is, there was an overnight brush fire in the Parksville Wetlands near Hirst Ave West and Renz Road.

The 25-metre by 25-metre blaze was Parksville’s first brush fire of the season.

Fire Chief Marc Norris tells CHEK News it was “person-caused and likely intentionally set.”

Dean StoltzDean Stoltz

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