Burnaby fire damages businesses, vehicles

A three-alarm fire in Burnaby left a number of businesses damaged and some electric vehicles totally destroyed.

Assistant Fire Chief Darcy Robinson says crews were called to Russell Avenue, just off Kingsway and Imperial Street, just before 3 a.m. Friday.

“It looks like it had started on the outside of the building with multiple vehicles on fire,” he told CityNews.

Robinson says the fire resulted in some smoke and water damage to two or three adjacent businesses.

No injuries were reported.

“There were no occupants, obviously, at that time of the morning,” he added.

The cause of the fire is still under investigation. Robinson says most of the vehicles that were on fire were electric.

“They were all Teslas and different ones, so that always is a factor, they don’t want to go out, they don’t like water being put onto the batteries and stuff like that,” he said.

“It’s better for them to cool off naturally than to put too much water onto them.”