Officials say a West Vancouver home severely damaged by fire early Wednesday morning was a likely clandestine meth lab.
Around 4 a.m., neighbours from the blocks around Birchfield Place in Caulfeild smelled smoke and called 911.
“It was a pretty big fire. The smoke smelled a little off. It smelled a little more noxious than you would think,” said Matt Clark, who lives nearby.
The home didn’t have alarms, so it took West Vancouver Fire and Rescue crews about 10 minutes of following their noses through the neighbourhood before they pinpointed the source at the end of the cul-de-sac, kitty-corner to Caulfeild Elementary.
Their first priority was making sure any residents were safe so they charged into the building, said assistant fire chief Matt Furlot.
“They were met with heavy smoke and flame. They got signs right away that the house was vacant, like no furniture in the house, and some unusual things like big holes cut in the floor,” he said. “There were strong signs of the house being a meth lab.”
The crews fell back and warned neighbours to stay inside and keep their windows closed. Firefighters concentrated their hoses on the attic where most of the fire was burning. Still, it took almost five hours to fully extinguish the flames, Furlot said.
Thankfully, the fire didn’t ignite any of the suspected lab equipment in the basement or cause a hazardous material spill from any of the barrels they found inside, he said.
“A very, very challenging attack, but the crews did very well. There were no injuries. And knowing the hazardous materials in the building, it was the right thing to do to take a very defensive mode on this fire,” Furlot said. “If the lab is infringed with fire, there are vapours that can be very toxic and harmful and if that happened, we would be evacuating that immediate neighbourhood.”
The investigation into the actual cause will take some time, but oftentimes fires in drug labs are caused by illegal modifications to the electrical wiring, he added.
Police are supporting the investigation.
Neighbours say the house had been the centre of suspicious activity for several months since new tenants moved in, coming and going at odd times, and never putting garbage and recycling out for collection at the curb. Those and any other suspicious warning signs should be reported, Furlot said.
Clark said the home, which was built in the 1980s, appears to be beyond repair.
“There’s a giant hole in the roof and they’re still in there cutting things away,” he said.
Drug lab fires are quite rare in West Vancouver, Furlot said.
“We probably go to a lab once every two or three years,” he said.
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