Squamish Fire Rescue was called to the scene of a fire Tuesday evening (April 28) that engulfed a vacant downtown commercial building scheduled for demolition.
The building located on Galbraith Avenue used to house Sea to Sky Courier and Alta Electric among other businesses.
It had undergone preparation for demolition such a window removal earlier in the day, but no workers were nearby when the fire occurred, and no injuries were reported, according to Fire Chief Ray Saurette.
"There was nobody around," he said.
Four trucks carrying 28 volunteer and a few career firefighters spent three hours putting the fire out.
"Based on its construction design, it required a lot of fine work to get into the nooks and crannies and make sure it was out," said Saurette.
The building's power had been disconnected, so electricity was ruled out. That and the fire's starting point leads to suspicions, said Saurette.
"Fires generally don't start by themselves. The building is totally vacant, and where the fire started was an outside portion of the building but to say we know exactly what the cause is - we don't know for sure."
Whatever the cause, Fire Rescue won't be spending an inordinate amount of time on the matter, said Saurette.
"The fire is suspicious, but given the nature of the building and it's under demolition we won't be spending a lot of effort trying to actually determine cause."
Squamish has experienced spurts of suspected arson, primarily targeting dumpsters, but also hitting homeless encampments in the bush between the downtown and the estuary.
Those incidences are expected to increase again now that dry weather has returned, said Saurette. But Saurette reiterated that it's difficult to assess whether arson really is to blame.
"The ones that happen outside always leads us to wonder why the fire started in that specific area," he said. "It's hard to always determine what the reasons for a fire are in an outside source. Could've been a cigarette, could've been purposely lit."
