Squamish fire investigator Tony Worth has officially labelled the downtown house fire that raged in the early morning hours of Thursday, July 29 "suspicious."
Worth spent two days investigating the site before declaring the fire suspicious and hading the case over to RCMP.
"During the fire investigation there's all kinds of fire indicators we look for and looking at burn patterns and that sort of thing allows us to determine the origin of the fire - at this time it is suspicious."
He said he can't reveal the determined point of origin because it may hamper the investigation, but said it did start in the shed.
"The matter is now turned over to the RCMP because it's a criminal matter," said Worth.
Meanwhile its lone occupant, Wes Powder, is speaking out following firefighting measures he deems "not well done."
It's not the firefighters themselves Powder takes exception to, but delayed response time and lack of sufficient water pressure at the nearest fire hydrant.
"My house should have never burned down," said Powder.
Powder escaped with only the clothes on his back after a garage fire took hold of an RV on his property and finally, his house.
"When our fire department can't put out my garage fire, that really leaves me with a bitter taste in my mouth, because my garage fire could have been put out."
He said he believed it took much longer than the nine minutes a fire investigator claims it took for fire trucks to arrive. He believed their arrival was impeded by a train at the Cleveland Avenue crossing, and argued a downtown fire station is needed.
"There's something that needs to be done so that emergency vehicles can get to and from downtown," he said.
Powder also said there wasn't enough water pressure at first and if there had been, his house wouldn't have caught fire.
"I lost my goddamn house and everything that I own - it never would have had to burn down," he said. "If we would have had somebody on scene and with the right water truck and water pressure
But Fire Rescue's side of the story paints a very different picture.
According to Worth and deputy fire chief Mike Adams, the first emergency call on the fire was dispatched to Vancouver 911 at 2:09 a.m., relayed to the Squamish Fire Rescue at 2:10 a.m. and two trucks were on the scene by 2:18 a.m.
Professional photographer Cameron Hunter, who had been on the street taking photos before the firefighters arrives, said according to his camera's time stamp, fire trucks arrived at 2:27 a.m.
Hunter said he watched the fire blaze and firefighters arrive before the house caught fire and he went inside thinking the fire was under control.
"At 2:30 a.m. I went inside when it looked like it was done - the shed was burned to the ground so I just figured OK, they got that," said Hunter. "There was a little bit of a fire on the house but nothing that made me think it would burn to the ground.
"Then at 2:38 a.m. I looked outside and the whole house was on fire."
Both Adams and Worth said fire trucks did not encounter a train that evening, and Worth said the last time he remembered that happening was when the railway tracks were still owned by BC Rail.
Worth agreed delays due to trains could be an issue, and said their protocol is to call CN Rail and ask them to speed up the train, but the situation is not ideal.
"But by the time you grab your phone, grab their number, grab everything else you know, by the time they get the information to the engineer the train's already gone through," said Worth.
CN Rail spokesperson Warren Chandler couldn't confirm whether a call had come through that night and said the emergency group should record that information. He also said emergency protocol is established by both parties, CN Rail and the community emergency programs.
"We are open to discussing emergency response protocol if the fire department feels the need," said Chandler.
Worth said there was a slight issue with one fire hose but it was after the fire was almost put out.
"Later on in the fire, after it was basically knocked down, we had some debris stuck in the hydrant line, between the hydrant and the truck," said Worth. "But we already had a secondary line in place anyways which is standard procedure so we used that, but that was after the fire had been knocked down."
In the end, Powder said he's devastated and wants Squamish to have more than four paid career fire staff. There are currently 50 volunteer members.
"It was horrifying and an evening I will never forget in my life - flames 30 feet in the air - I'll tell ya right now that's the worst day of my life."
