An investigation is underway after a home at the base of North Vancouver’s Grouse Mountain was destroyed in a massive fire early Saturday morning.
The blaze began around 1 a.m. at a decades-old cabin that used to serve as the Bavarian Arms Café on Skyline Drive.
Images from the scene show red-hot embers shooting into the sky, fueled by flames engulfing the cabin.
“Huge, huge, huge flames and sparks, so many sparks 200 feet up and it was coming slowly to us,” said one man who lives in the area.
“We couldn’t breathe, we came out and saw it was really cloudy, and we knew there was a fire somewhere… It was scary.”
The entire cabin – which was being used as a family home – was destroyed in the fire.
Firefighters say a number of things made the blaze a challenging one, including the remoteness of the property.
“The terrain is obviously a challenge, it’s an older home tucked away in behind a cliff edge, and there are a lot of switch backs to get up here... and many, many trees surround this place,” said District of North Vancouver assistant fire chief Jim Bonneville.
The nearest water source was a hydrant a good distance from the home, and firefighters had to use a kilometre of hose relayed between three trucks to get water to the scene.
A live hydro line was also down and blocking access to the front of the home, said Bonneville. Crews were forced to wait for power to be cut to the property before accessing the rest of the house.
The occupants of the home were out of the country, and no one was injured.
The cause of the fire was not immediately clear, but it is not being considered suspicious at this time.
With files from CTV Vancouver’s Scott Roberts
