2 Terrace Review —

Fire safety o 60C
up to standard, “official says

‘In the past two months, there
have been two serious fires in
downtown Prince Rupert. The
Savoy Hotel was levelled first,
and last week two downtown
businesses were destroyed. How
these two fires started is not yet
‘known but they do have one
thing in common: both fires oc-
curred: -in older or “heritage”
“bui dings. that were built early

‘Most buildings in Terrace’s
‘600 ‘black Lakelse Ave. were
built: between the early 1920's
and World War II. Because of
the recent fires in Prince Rupert

Wednesday, January, 3, 1990

the question now is, even with
their attractive new front,. are
these buildings safe? When
many of them were built,
federal, not provincial regula-
tions were in effect and many
builders in the province failed to
follow the code. .

The question was put to Lt.
Per Halvorsen of the Terrace
Fire Department, and while he
says the 4600 block is ‘‘safe”’ it

may depend on how you inter-
pret the question. Halvorsen is
speaking of public safety as it
relates to the potential for injury
or loss of life due to a fire. As
far as the safety.of the buildings
are: concerned, however,
Halvorsen, says.there is a con-
cern due to their age. That con-

cern,. however, isn’t serious
enough to keep firefighters
awake at night.

There are a number of reasons
for this. First, like many other
areas in-‘t6wn the Fire Depart-
ment has a “‘fire plan’’ for the
4600 block and in most cases,
with early notification, a fire
could be contained. Also, he
says, the chance of a fire starting
in a 4600 block building is re-
duced due to the fact that
tenants and building owners in
the block are aware of the ages
of the buildings they occupy and:
are appropriately cautious.
Hazards of electrical fire have
been eliminated in most, if not
all, cases because old wiring has
‘ been replaced through numerous
renovations. And finally, every
tenant or owner on the block is
providing an acceptable degree
of public safety, says Halvorsen.

Each business has at least two
useable exits, emergency lighting
and fire extinguishers.
Halvorsen says it’s possible
that.more could be done but it
: unreasonable to expect
any mote? If it wa$ felt that one
particilar business provided a
specific hazard, the Fire Depart-
ment;éduld insist on a sprinkler

system, for example. This is un- |

likely.to happen, ‘though. All but
three’ of the buildings in the area
are not public buildings as de-

' fined by the Fire Services Act of

B.C. and are more under the
jurisdiction of the building in-
spector than the fire depart-
ment,

A public building i is defined as
one where people tend to con-
gregate such as restaurants, bars
or hotels. Buildings with sleep-
ing quarters attached are not
considered public buildings
under the act unless there are 10
or more people sleeping in the
building. The three that are
classified as public buildings in
the area are the Inn of the West,
the Quarter Deck restaurant and
Danny’s Pool Hall. All three
meet‘current standards.

Because of this definition,
most buildings‘on the block may
be outside of the’ jurisdiction of
the local fire department
without “specific fustification”’.
And as Halvorsen explains, it
may be difficult to justify a
sprinkler system to a small
business when it might cost be-
tween $10,000 and $20,000 to in-
stall. There is also the fact that
in the last 15. years there have
been only five fires in the area,
one in the 4600. block, and all
five were contained. There have
been no major fires in the area in
the past 10 years.

In the mid-1970’s, the Siver
Tip Cafe on Kalum St. was
levelled. A short time later, the
small general store across the
street was put out of business by
a fire which gutted the building.
This building was renovated and
became Winterland Books, but
was destroyed by fire a few years
later. At about the same time the
Elks Hall in the 4500 block
Lakelse was destroyed by fire
and The Hub book store was put
out of business when the interior
of their 4600 block store was
gutted. °~’

Fire destroys mobile
home in Thornhill’

Thornhill firefighters were called out twice in the latter part
of December, according to Thornhill Fire Chief Art Hoving.

’ The first fire was relatively minor but the second destroyed.a
mobile home and an antique car.

On Dec. 22 a fire started in a mobile home located at the in-
tersection of Fox and Penner, apparently due to a faulty elec-
tric hot water heater. Hoving said the fire was brought under

_ control. quickly and described damage to the home as
‘«repairable’’. The tenant, Reg Fortin,

A fire on Dec. 29 was ‘much more serious, however. Ac-

cording to Hoving, a kerosene space heater apparently ex-
_ploded when the owner of a Kofoed St. mobile home, Serge
Pare, turned it off. Hoving says that flames resulting from
the explosion blocked the front entrance and Pare escaped
through a rear door. The resulting flames destroyed the
mobile home.and an attached garage containiig a 1947
Chevrolet sedan. Hoving says the property was a total loss
and was s uninsured. There were no reported injuries.

was uninjured.

“18 apartment buildings, one. Te

- More than the 4600 block,
says Halvorsen, the area of
prime concern for the Terrace .
Fire Department has been local ;
hotels and apartment buildings. :
But he says they have been
working on the problem of hav-
ing these buildings brought up to‘
code for a number of years and
the job is nearly complete. Out ;
of seven hotels in Terrace all-but
one are now up to code. and: of

College seeks ideas
for. Environment Week

Northwest Community College is looking for input from
Terrace and area residents in order to host an Environment
Awareness Week in the spring, Anyone with ideas, sug-
gestions, identification of needs or suggested guest speakers is
asked to call the Northwest Community College switchboard,
who will record your name, phone number and suggestion.
Facilitator Freida Dams will be compiling the information
before the end of January. The college hopes the interest and

4] input will be sufficient to then commence planning for En-
| ‘vironment Awareness Week. . .

mains to be upgraded. - - |

;

Maintenance yard move — continue rom pace +

Order-in-Council to transfer the
title from Forestry to Crown

Lands. -This process has .now.
taken place. According to Ian

Smythe of the. Ministry. of
Crown Lands in Smithers, a re-
ferral on the application was

sent to the regional district this ©

week, If there are no objections
from that quarter, approval will
probably be given. This. could
mean access would .be granted
sometime in February.

‘though, it was never removed
from government survey maps
and it wasn’t until recently that
local surveyor Don Highe dis-
covered the age old Order-In-
Council changing the status of
the land.

North Coast filed an applica-
tion for a short-term crown lease
in order to build their parking
lot, and a referral on this ap-
plication was sent to the regional
district on Nov. 28 last year. But

on seeing yet another crown land
-referral involving North Coast
Road Maintenance, the regional
district board of directors tabled
any further discussion until after
‘the December public hearing,

That won’t solve the. problem
of getting the project underway,
however. The public hearing
cancelled last month was to
rezone the residential lot pur-
chased from Kirby last. July
from Low Density Rural to Re-
stricted Industrial -, Without this
approval, North Coast can’t

scheduled. Zylicz’s schedule.
from the point of that public

cereal

-begin thinking about. building a

maintenance shop. .

A third problem has been
solved by North Coast by for-
getting it. According to, Zylicz;

they require parking for about.

40 highways vehicles. He ex-
plains that the property that was
originally rezoned for the main-
tenance site is uneven and
primarily designated as gravel
pit. Zylicz believed he found a
solution when it was discovered
the Copper City subdivision was
no longer registered as a sub-
division but was instead crown
land. According to Zylicz, Cop-
per City was registered as a sub-
division in 1908 for sale to over-
seas buyers. The project was “‘a
bust’’, however, and over the
years the land reverted back to
the crown: In ‘the process,

hearin called; for three Months -
of devel ldpment ‘work before the
Maintenance shop ‘could be"

ordered; This, according to
Zylicz, would have them work-
ing out of the new site in Sep-
tember.

This schedule is now up in the
air, though. The regional board
will likely table the North Coast
application again at their Jan. 20
meeting pending a public hear-
ing that they will schedule at the
same time. According to
Yamashita, this would mean a
public hearing early in February,
if all goes well, and a recommen-
dation from the panel could be
reviewed by the board at their
Feb, 17 meeting. If this goes as
planned, Zylicz says, they may.

still be able to begin but they.

wouldn’t be able to move to the

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new. site until probably
November — only one year

_ from the expiration of their.con- —

tract and, possibly, already into
the beginning of next winter’s
snow removal program.
Because of the delays the late
timing of the move is - un-
attractive but workable, says
Zylicz, but any further delays
and it could become impossible.
For that reason they are scrap-

ping their plans for the parking —

lot and trying to figure out how
to level out a portion of their
new gravel pit to build a parking
lot. It. may not be the best situa-
tion, sa¥siZylicz, but because of
the anticipated delay another

the one that is. waiting to be-re-. land.referral.swould cause, they

fee] it’s better than scrapping
their plan entirely.

Another . ‘reason for forging
ahead’ as: quickly: as possible,
Zylicz says, is financial in
nature. Every month they re-
main at the Park Ave. yard they
pay BCBC (the British Colum-
bia Buildings Corporation)
another month’s rent at a rate
similar to ‘any other commercial
property in the area that consists
of 2% acres of property, a 9,000
square foot shop and numerous -
support buildings. On top of
this, there are costs they have
already incurred at the proposed
site. Zylicz says the company has ”
already made a substantial in-
vestment in initial construction.
Moving as quickly as possible,
therefore, would obviously
make North Coast’s contract
with the Ministry of Highways
more viable. ©

‘Terrace Review
Avenue,
. V8G 1M7

Pee 7 yet natant eee

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