A fire which destroyed a heritage house on Old Yale Road in historic Murrayville on Saturday afternoon is being treated as suspicious.
“We have no idea what started it,” said Langley Township fire chief Stephen Gamble on Monday.
But because the building was empty when the blaze broke out at around 1:30 p.m., “we always get a little suspicious, because that’s not normal,” he said.
“The RCMP have been called in “as a precautionary measure.”
Police blocked traffic off the 216 Street roundabout to Old Yale Road, where at least a half a dozen emergency vehicles, including pumper trucks and command vehicles and an ambulance, were on site, as the empty building burned.
As many as 12 fire department trucks were assigned to the fire at one point, Gamble said. But not all of them went to the scene.
Early in the afternoon, the Township fire department began receiving numerous calls about the blaze, many reporting black and brown smoke spewing from the building.
That’s a sign a fire is well advanced, explained Gamble, because it indicates tar from the roof and any contents have been engulfed in flames.
Gamble said Monday he wasn’t sure what the dollar value of the fire will be set at.
“I’ve not talked to the investigator, but he described it as a write-off,” he said.
The figure will be somewhat complicated by the building’s heritage status, he added, because the designation “means there is a lot more value to the community.”
No one was injured in the blaze.