A large patch of burnt grass, discarded matches and a smell of singed grass remain after a grass fire in Moody Park this afternoon.
New Westminster Police attended a site in Moody Park where a fire occurred this afternoon, leaving blackened grass around a large tree. Police interviewed witnesses, including one who saw three young people playing with matches near the spot where the fire broke out.
Dennis, who did not give his surname to the Record, said he spotted the two males and one female when he arrived at the park for a barbecue. He noticed the youths were lighting matches in an area that was surrounded by trees, but suspected they were doing drugs.
Used matches, cigarette butts and debris are scattered in the area where Dennis initially saw the youths lighting matches, not far away from the location where the fire occurred. It was after Dennis saw the trio scattering in different directions that he noticed the flames, which reached about a foot off the ground near the tree that’s located on the 10th Street side of the park.
Like Dennis, area resident Christopher Bell credits a city crew’s prompt response for preventing more damage from the fire.
According to Bell, a crew in a city vehicle carrying water was first on the scene and poured water on the flames, until New Westminster Fire and Rescue Service rolled up and blasted the site with water.
Given the proximity to large trees in the vicinity of the fire, Bell said city crews may have prevented a “potential conflagration” by stopping the flames before they spread.
According to witnesses, youths were also spotted lighting matches in Moody Park last week.
Bell hopes police are able to identify the suspects and prevent further fires from being set. He said the outcome could have been severe, if it hadn’t been for “some on-the-ball” city workers.
In the lead-up to the Canada Day long weekend, the B.C. Wildfire Service issued a press release urging British Columbians to exercise caution with any allowed fire use over the long weekend.
“B.C.’s landscapes can dry out quickly, and sometimes it doesn’t take much to spark a wildfire,” stated the press release. “Human-caused fires are completely preventable and unnecessarily divert crucial firefighting resources away from naturally occurring wildfires.”
