Mayor Patricia Heintzman says she’s pleased with the local and regional response to the fire at Squamish Terminals Thursday evening.
As heavy smoke filled the downtown from a fire raging on the docks, agencies and governments banded together for Squamish, Heintzman said in an interview Friday with The Squamish Chief.
“Considering it could have been even worse, I think things went really well,” said Heintzman. She said all agencies, including Squamish Fire Rescue Services, Squamish Search and Rescue, the emergency operation centre, District of Squamish communications and others, “got up running smoothly” and communicated well.
“We were trying to make sure the community was informed,” she said. “It was mostly precautionary…. In certain areas, the smoke was quite bad and we had no way of knowing what was in the air.”
Health authorities have said the air was filled with wood smoke with creosote from the wood pilings that were burning, but the advisory to stay inside was lifted on Friday morning after the heavy plume of smoke had lifted.
At first, people rushed to the Terminals and Nexen Beach to get a view of the fire, but RCMP blocked entrances to both sites and advised people to stay indoors. Officers on the scene were wearing gas masks.
Following the advisory, the mayor said it was “eerily quiet downtown…. Generally speaking, the community responded really well.”
Heintzman said the City of Vancouver sent a water boat to the scene, “one of the things I thought was kind of awesome,” and Mayor Gregor Robertson offered Squamish “anything you need.”
Whistler offered to send firefighters, Heintzman said. “We didn’t actually call them, but it was nice to know that they were willing and able.”
Overall, she was pleased with the response. “It was nice to know that people have your back,” she said.
When the smoke settles, she said, the challenge will be investigating exactly what happened and how to prevent it, as well as response times. “I thought all did an excellent job but there are always things you can look at and do differently.”
Future safety is a concern as well.
“Obviously any time there is significant situation like this, you want to figure out what happened… and make sure it doesn’t happen again in the future,” said Heintzman. “Squamish Terminals obviously has to figure out the safety of their site, and I am sure they will be really diligent.”
