A fire that engulfed the west end of downtown Squamish in smoke late Saturday night (May 22) is being deemed suspicious by authorities, and may be linked to vagrants living in the abandoned building.
It's unclear whether at the time of the fire people were occupying the building connected to the Chieftain Hotel by a walkway, but both Cpl. Dave Ritchie and Squamish Fire Chief Tom Easterbrook confirmed vagrants have been known to live there.
"It wasn't supposed to be occupied, although I understand that there might have been a few, one or two vagrants that had broken in and were staying there at least one occasion," Easterbrook said.
The building went up in flames just after midnight, and after discovering the size the blaze, Easterbrook said he sent out a call for all available volunteer firefighters to suit up and lend a hand.
One ladder truck, three fire engines, a utility vehicle and 22 firefighters were on scene dousing the two-storey structure and a connecting walkway, while dozens of people lined the streets watching.
Firefighters spent hours putting out the blaze, and fire officials and police followed up with an investigation, deeming the blaze "suspicious."
By 2 a.m., the fire had spread to the roof of the downtown building, threatening nearby power lines. The Chieftain Hotel and the attached C-Level nightclub were evacuated. There were no reports of injury.
Easterbrook said the fire has been deemed suspicious after investigators ruled out other typical causes including lighting or electrical failure.
"We're not going further than that and calling it a deliberately set fire because we don't have enough information to go to that extent," he said.
"There's still a chance that it occurred by accident but they're still conducting an investigation into that to determine it one way or another."
Calls to the business's owner were not returned.
A police press release said the walkway and building were "heavily damaged by the fire, which did not spread or appear to have damaged the hotel itself."
By 10 a.m. on Sunday morning, caution tape surrounded the charred building and police were there securing the site against tampering in case it became an official criminal investigation.
"The fire investigators couldn't do their investigation until Tuesday, so the scene had to be protected until then, in case there is any evidence," said Ritchie.
Ritchie said it's normal for police to treat a fire as a crime scene until the cause has been determined.
"At this point we don't know if it is a crime scene but we don't take the risk if it is and not have it protected."
Easterbrook said once the investigation is complete the structurally damaged building will be boarded up and locked ensuring no trespassing.
The fire chief said the responding crew did an exemplary job containing the fire. The crew ensured no fire damaged was caused to nearby power lines, telephone lines or the electrical pole situated less than five feet away from the burning building.
"They contained it to mainly the one area of the structure and stopped it from advancing to the existing part of the building that was being used, in the hotel."
Anyone with information on the fire is asked to call Squamish RCMP at 604-892- 6100 or Crime Stoppers at 1-800-222-8477.
