A 76-year-old barn in Dashwood is a write off after a fire Wednesday (Nov. 29).
Dashwood Volunteer Fire Department, along with the Parksville, Errington, Coombs-Hilliers and Qualicum departments, attended the barn fire on a residential property just off the 4000-block of Highway 19A, near Barton Road.
Dashwood fire chief Nick Acciavatti said one truck was down the residential road where the fire was while other trucks were parked by Barton Road doing tanker shuttles since there wasn’t a hydrant by the fire.
Acciavatti said the 2,000-sq.-ft. barn accidentally caught on fire, but was vacant at the time.
“At one point, it was an old horse barn that was built in 1941,” said Acciavatti, adding the barn is a complete loss.
Oceanside RCMP told The NEWS there are no injuries reported in the incident.
The initial call came in to the Dashwood Volunteer Fire Department at 2:30 p.m. Wednesday. It eventually drew multiple fire departments, Oceanside RCMP and B.C. Ambulance Service members.
Traffic was backed up both directions on Highway 19A just north of Qualicum Beach as firefighters and other first responders battled the fire and shuttled the water onto the property.
Errington and Parksville firefighters were released from the scene by 3:20 p.m., but other firefighters remained on scene, along with police and ambulance personnel. With no fire hydrants nearby in the rural region, firefighters pumped from tanker trucks supplied by the Errington and Parksville departments, The NEWS was told.
