Langley fire destroys multiple businesses

A major fire destroyed several businesses in a light industrial complex in Langley, Tuesday night.

City of Langley Deputy Fire Chief Kelly Gilday said nobody was hurt in the fire, which continued to smoke well into the night. 

“As far as we understand, there was nobody in the building, no injuries,” said Gilday.

About 35 firefighters from the City of Langley and the Township of Langley were called to the three alarm fire at 20579 Langley Bypass, including several off-duty members.

“When our crews got here, there was already a fireball going, it was already through the roof. In these types of occupancies, there’s a lot of combustible material, and so when it goes up it goes up in a big fireball, sometimes.” 

Sean O'Neill, the branch manager at Hotsy Water Blast, just a few metres away from the damaged building, said he was a couple kilometres away when he heard a large explosion. 

“You could see the plume of black smoke, it was like heavy dense smoke. It had to have been 20 or 30 feet in the air, at least.”

O'Neill said his business is not damaged, except for some minor flooding from the fire hoses.

“We’ve got really no damage, per se, just no power right now, and we don’t know when we’ll be up and going again, it just depends when [BC Hydro] can get us back up.”

But several businesses in the burned building won't be so lucky. Gilday said.

“There’s lots of little businesses, lots of little industrial shops, and everything. So there’s quite a mixture, they're all kind of modern industrial.”