Police continue to investigate whether a 38-year-old man arrested over the weekend in connection with a vacant house fire on the West Side is responsible for the unprecedented number of blazes that have occurred this year to houses slated to be demolished.
Jonathan Lewis Durocher has been charged with arson causing damage to property in connection with a suspicious fire that occurred around 3 p.m. Sunday at a house at Drummond Drive and West Second Avenue, near the University of B.C.
So far this year, 29 suspicious fires have occurred at vacant houses. It’s a huge spike in the type of fire, with only five recorded last year, according to Const. Jason Doucette, a VPD media liaison officer, who urged the public to report any suspicious activity at or near vacant houses, despite Sunday’s arrest.
“We’re looking at everything,” said Doucette when asked what police believe is the reason for the spike in fires this year. “We’re trying to hammer down a motive in each of the fires, and we’re not suggesting that it’s the same motive in every one of them.”
Court records show that a man with the same name and age as the suspect was before the courts several times on theft charges in the late 1990s. The offences occurred in Vancouver, the North Shore, Burnaby and Richmond.
Durocher’s most recent court appearances were in August of this year, when he was charged with theft, resisting a peace officer and possession of a controlled substance. Police haven’t said whether the man arrested Sunday is the same man associated to the court files.
The suspect police arrested Sunday was seen by firefighters running from the property.
It was the second vacant house that went up in flames over the weekend, with firefighters responding Saturday to a blaze at 505 West 62nd Avenue at Cambie Street. As of Tuesday, police had not made an arrest in the fire, which broke out around 8:30 to a duplex that had last been lived in back in July, according to a spokesperson from SDAE Development (Canada) Co. Ltd, which owns the property.
The spokesperson, who refused to provide his name for publication, said he and his boss were shocked to learn via a police officer that the house caught fire. He said a tenant vacated the house in July but power was still hooked up when the fire erupted Saturday. The house was boarded up and had a tall metal fence installed around it in August, he added.
City council approved the rezoning of the property in July. The company plans to demolish the house and build a six-storey, 32-unit residential building. A city official said in an email that the city received a development permit from the company Oct. 7.
The spokesperson said the company, which has an office in Richmond, has yet to hear back from the city on whether its permit will be approved. If and when a permit is approved, the company would then apply for a permit to demolish what’s left of the house, he said.
“We want to demolish it, as soon as possible,” he said. “We don’t want to make any trouble for public safety.”
The spokesperson said he couldn’t think of a reason why someone would set fire to the house. A review of the public hearing records for the property’s rezoning indicated 13 people supported the rezoning of the property, with none against it.
However, the Courier noticed Tuesday the city’s sign on the property advertising the owner’s plans was vandalized by someone who used a black felt pen or spray paint to write: “Vancouver is for sale – greediest city by 2020.”
The Courier reported Nov. 15 that Fire Chief John McKearney was calling for more robust standards that would require property owners to do a better job of boarding up and securing homes before they are demolished.
McKearney also said he and city staff are exploring the possibility of charging property owners for the cost of extinguishing a fire and investigating how the blaze erupted, if an owner is derelict in properly securing a property.
In February, the Courier reported the City of Vancouver had issued an average of 940 demolition permits per year for single-family homes and duplexes since 2012. Most of the permits were issued on the West Side, with large numbers in Southlands and Dunbar.
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