One of the witnesses to a fire on the Hope Station House said the fire was started by a substance spread across the door of the building, which looked like it had religious or spiritual significance.
“It almost looked like some kind of cult thing, because it was a circle and then someone had made a cross in the middle of the circle. And they had lit it, and they’ve got plastic on the front door because they’re doing construction, so they’ve got plastic all along the front gutters and all along the front door,” said witness Ken Monkhouse. “The plastic was starting to burn really quickly.”
Monkhouse saw one man trying to put the fire out, he wasn’t having much luck. So Monkhouse grabbed what he had, a pair of flame-retardant coveralls, to smother the flames.
The RCMP and the Hope Fire Department attended the scene at the corner of Highway 1 and Old Hope Princeton Way, where fire chief Tom DeSorcy said someone had ignited plastic on the shuttered building. He confirmed the fire was a minor one, it didn’t affect the building itself and was out by the time fire crews arrived.
Monkhouse said the RCMP officers did not ask him about what he saw, he said they did an inspection and left promptly.
Monkhouse said the fire at Station House is very worrying as it is one of Hope’s last remaining historic structures.
“It seems like more and more of this stuff is starting to happen in Hope because apparently there have been some other arson incidents,” he said. “I’ve lived in Hope for nine years, but I’ve loved history since I was a little kid. I’m a huge history fan and it’s a big part of what the town used to be. So it’s a very important structure to me and I think it’s a very important structure to a lot of people in town. You have to preserve the history.”
The fire is considered suspicious and is under investigation by Hope RCMP.
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