Fire destroys historic Sandon buildings

By Aaron Orlando - Arrow Lakes News - March 27, 2008

The house known as Dr. Gomm's house in Sandon burns on March 20. The Tin Cup Cafe in the background to the left caught fire first and is burned to the ground at this point. A volunteer sqaud of citizen firefighters saved houses across the street, but were unable to save these two buildings.

Photo courtesy of Steve Klapecki

Two Sandon historical buildings, the Tin Cup Cafe and the adjacent building known as Dr. Gomm’s house, were destroyed by fire at about 2 p.m. on Thursday, March 20.

New Denver Volunteer Fire Department Chief Leonard Casley said his department responded with a pump and other equipment to Sandon after getting permission from the Village of New Denver.

Because Sandon is out of their fire protection area, Casley said members of their department were essentially responding as private citizens.

There were no injuries to either responders or occupants of the buildings.

The Tin Cup Cafe had burned to the ground and the Gomm house was completely engulfed by the time they arrived, and there was nothing they could do to save them, he said.

Casley said they were able to save two buildings across the street from the fire. When they arrived, the garage attached to one of the buildings had already caught on fire due to heat radiating from the fire.

They placed hoses into the river to pump water and were able to control that blaze before it spread to the house.

Casley said the buildings were engulfed quickly because of their age. Both were built in the 1890s. “Those are really old buildings and their fire separation just isn’t there compared to new construction, where it buys you some time. Both of them went up fairly quickly. They were very hot with radiant heat.”

He says there was likely little that could have been done to save the buildings, but did say having pumps and other firefighting equipment on hand could have made some difference. “If they had had a pump and fire stuff ready to go, they could have at least kept the garage on the other side from catching on fire. If it was summertime we would have lost everything up there,” he said, referring to Sandon as a whole. “It would have all went. It would have been a big forest fire with the heat that came off there. ... It would have been a whole different story if it was even two or three months from now. It was just lucky it happened at this time of year, as far as luck in that type of situation can go.”

Because the fire occurred outside of a fire protection area, the job of investigating the fire falls with the RCMP.

Cst. Stephan Drouin of the Slocan Lake Detachment says the incident is still under investigation, so they’re not releasing information on the investigation.

He said the owners of the Gomm house property, who were in Alberta at the time of the fire, had been notified about the fire and he confirmed there were no injuries.

He said insurance adjusters were in the process at looking at the damage and that the RCMP have released the scene.

Cst. Drouin said the RCMP investigation is ongoing and there were still people yet to be interviewed. “Until we’ve had a chance to do that with everybody, we’re not going to comment on this file at this point. We’re not suspecting or ruling out foul play.”

He said the RCMP was not commenting on the cause of the fire at this point.

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Fire destroys historic Sandon buildings

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