Barge Catches Fire in Vancouver's Fraser River Port District

Overnight Thursday, a large fire broke out aboard a deck barge at the port of Surrey, BC, sending a dense plume of smoke into the air and startling residents who thought it was a commercial building fire.

The fire broke out aboard a barge at a scrap metal terminal at Musqueam Drive, on the Surrey side of the Fraser River. The local fire department received a call at about 2300 hours reporting a major fire, and found a burning barge laden with scrap metal. At its peak, the blaze extended the length of the barge and engulfed the pile.

The fire department treated it as a two-alarm fire and kept hoses on it into Friday. Metro Vancouver, the regional authority, said Friday that it was monitoring air quality given the large volume of smoke given off by the smoldering pile.

Courtesy Metro Vancouver

Scrap metal fires are all too common, and are typically ignited by unwanted contaminants - notably lithium-ion batteries, which can burst into flame when damaged. The problem has grown in recent years alongside the expanding use (and discarding) of consumer battery-powered devices. The fires grow and accelerate in the presence of flammable debris within the pile, such as oily wastes and plastics.