The spontaneous combustion of oil-soaked materials is the likely cause of a fire early Tuesday in a commercial space on lower Yates Street, says the Victoria Fire Department.
While officially, the cause of the fire is undetermined, discarded materials are the “probable cause,” said Victoria Fire Lt.-Insp. Brad Sifert.
No one was injured in the blaze on the main floor of 524 Yates St., just above Wharf Street and adjacent to Waddington Alley.
The building has commercial enterprises below and condominiums above
Marissa Schillemore and Kevin Marshall, who live on the third floor of the residential units, had to cover the faces of their two toddlers, ages one and three, with blankets before whisking them down a smoky stairwell.
“I was scared and my daughter had a panic attack, scared we would die,” Schillemore said in an email. “She was shaking a lot as we went down the stairs and outside.”
The children’s noses were filled with “black gunk” even hours later, she said.
The commercial ground-floor space was under renovation and scheduled to open in about a week, said Victoria Fire Battalion Chief Dave Bicknell.
Dave Strong, owner of construction firm Strong Properties, hopes the opening will only be delayed by a few weeks.
Tim Wilkinson, chief operating officer of software companies MetaLab and getflow.com, which is to soon set up in the new 2,800 square-foot leased space, is also hopeful he will be able to open up shop by July 1, but isn’t sure that is realistic.
Wilkinson’s business, which employs 30 people, is currently located just blocks away at the corner of Langley and Broughton streets. “The delay is definitely frustrating and messes up the logistics of the move, but I’m happy it wasn’t worse and that no one was hurt,” Wilkinson said in an email.
Strong said his crew was doing finishing work on a small section of floor Monday.
The fire department said the labourers were using tung oil, a highly flammable drying oil.
Fire crews dispatched to the blaze at 2:14 a.m. arrived to find smoke in the commercial space. Firefighters traced the blaze to a small smoldering pile of construction waste, including discarded window dressing.
Sifert said he did not find definitive evidence of the fire’s source, but if an oil-soaked rag had caused the blaze, he would not expect to find it. No other possible cause was apparent during his inspection, said Sifert. He interviewed two workers who had been working on the floor until about 3 p.m. Monday.
The workers said they put the oil-soaked rags in pails of water outside the building, as part of their normal protocol, Sifert said. “I can’t rule it out just based on what they’re saying,” he said. “A rag could have been left in there.”
Strong said his crews are trained to dispose of such rags in water pails outdoors and he has been assured that was done and all rags were accounted for.
Smoke alarms sounded throughout all floors of the building and the fire on the ground floor was suppressed by the commercial unit’s sprinkler system, according to the fire department.
Damage is estimated at $35,000.
