There's nothing lucky about a house fire but if Squamish Fire Rescue personnel hadn't been training a mere block away, an entire Garibaldi Estates family home would likely have been destroyed by an attached garage fire Monday night (May 26).Normally on evenings and weekends firefighters are on-call but there isn't a crew stationed at the fire hall on Tantalus Road. However, Monday nights happen to be practice nights so 23 firefighters responded rapidly to the Drewry home at 1016 Regency Place, said firefighter Bob Fulton."If the delay had been another four or five minutes it probably would have meant the fire would have gone into the house and...it might have been a total loss," he said.Fulton said Laura Drewry, her three sons and the family dog escaped the house unharmed while husband Ron was in Edmonton on business. However, the fire extended out the garage and seriously damaged a large fishing boat and an SUV that were parked on the driveway. The boat's 225 and 20 horsepower Honda motors were destroyed and the electronic gear, including antennae and radar were damaged. There is minor smoke damage inside the house. The total cost of the damage has yet to be determined.Squamish Fire Rescue is ruling the fire accidental although the exact cause is still being investigated.One thing is for sure, the timing was crucial to keeping the extent of the blaze to a minimum. On any other night of the week, the paid on-call volunteers would have had to rush to the station from wherever they were, gear up, man the trucks and travel to the fire. Instead, they were able to be on scene almost immediately and extinguish the fire within about 15 minutes, said Fulton.
