A car torched in a West Valley back lane early Sunday morning is being investigated as arson, and officials say it’s only a matter of luck that more damage wasn’t done to the neighbourhood as a result.
A car torched in a West Valley back lane early Sunday morning is being investigated as arson, and officials say it’s only a matter of luck that more damage wasn’t done to the neighbourhood as a result.
“It’s a serious crime, ” Cochrane Fire Services spokesman Jeff Avery said of the weekend incident. “The garages could have gone up and started homes on fire and people could have died.
“It’s one of those things that can definitely get away from you in a hurry. ”
Resident Braden Biggart said he came home from work Saturday night, parked his 2002 Subaru Outback on the parking pad behind his home on West Gissing Road, and went to bed.
A few hours later, Biggart’s neighbours “heard the tires exploding and stuff like that and called 911, ” the 20-year-old recalled. “When I went out I just saw my hood up on my windshield and I went, ‘Oh no.’ ”
Firefighters extinguished the flames that engulfed the front half of the Outback and were able to contain the destruction to only the car and Biggart’s second vehicle, a 1999 Dodge Dakota.
"It got so hot that the front of my truck got melted, ” Biggart said of the truck, adding his Subaru bore the brunt of the blaze. “Basically from the front bumper to the windshield is completely burned. The engine is on the ground, the tires are melted. ”
In addition to the wreckage in Biggart’s backyard, Avery said investigators discovered “someone had thrown some accelerants … in a number of different locations ” along the alleyway, with damage to three nearby garages and a recreational vehicle.
RCMP Const. Kary Moore said police also found “a number of vehicles were entered ” in the area and the basement windows of a nearby school had been kicked out.
@font-face { font-family: "Calibri"; }@font-face { font-family: "Tahoma"; }p.MsoNormal, li.MsoNormal, div.MsoNormal { margin: 0cm 0cm 10pt; line-height: 115%; font-size: 11pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }p.MsoAcetate, li.MsoAcetate, div.MsoAcetate { margin: 0cm 0cm 0.0001pt; font-size: 8pt; font-family: "Times New Roman"; }span.BalloonTextChar { font-family: Tahoma; }div.Section1 { } Biggart said he’s lived in the West Valley area his whole life and doesn’t remember anything this serious happening before.
“We’ve had break-ins, but nothing to the extent of vehicles being burned, garages being burned. ”
Avery said, while these types of occurrences can seem like just harmless mischief, they’re not - and firefighters will be working closely with law enforcement to find those behind the blaze.
“It’s very, very irresponsible, ” he said. “You will eventually get caught. ”
