Most of the folks making appearances at the provincial courthouse in New Westminster were long gone by the time a fire broke out in the building on Thursday night.
New Westminster Fire and Rescue Service was called to the provincial courthouse on Carnarvon Street about 5 p.m. on Jan. 16, after a sheriff noticed a fire.
“We discovered that there was an electrical fire in a ballast in the ceiling on the fourth floor, for one of the lighting systems,” said deputy fire chief John Hatch. “One of the sheriffs noticed it and activated the alarm system.”
Hatch said the sheriff likely smelled and heard the fire before activating the pull station.
“There was a lot of smoke that was created,” he said. “We had to evacuate, then ventilate and find the area where it was located.”
Hatch estimates the ceilings in the part of the courthouse where the fire occurred to be 40 to 50 feet high, which made it difficult to get to.
“We isolated it using the electrical systems,” he said. “We shut down the electrical feed to that are.”
Firefighters left the building about 90 minutes after getting the call and dealing with the source of the fire and ventilating the building. Because the call came in around 5 p.m., most of the people in the building were sheriffs and other courthouse employees.
“We were there for probably an hour-and-a-half,” Hatch said. “The damage was minimal.”
