Officials investigate after a nearby underground electrical vault caught fire and and caused an explosion in downtown Vancouver, B.C., Friday, Feb. 24, 2023. The Vancouver Fire Rescue Service says the first half of 2023 has been a record breaking period for fire-related incidents in the city. THE CANADIAN PRESS/Rich Lam

VANCOUVER - The Vancouver Fire Rescue Service says the first half of 2023 has been a record-breaking period for fire-related incidents in the city, with alarming numbers of calls involving drug users and butane torches with flame-locking mechanisms.

Fire information officer Matthew Trudeau said the service responded to 2,113 calls in the first half of the year, the most in the service's history for the same period and an "unprecedented" 31 per cent increase compared to the first half of 2022.

Trudeau said the pandemic saw many "societal changes" as people were stuck at home and cooking a lot more, and kitchen fires were the primary cause of fire calls for "a number of years."

But now the fire service is seeing more fires caused by tobacco and drug-smoking materials, especially in single-room occupancy buildings.

The fire service said in a statement that the leading cause of fires remains discarded smoking materials including matches, lighters, candles, cigarettes, and drug paraphernalia, causing nearly 60 per cent of all incidents.

The fire service said it was worried about more fires in single-room occupancy buildings as well as a notable spike in outdoor fires.

Trudeau said there have been numerous single-room occupancy fires caused by drug users dropping butane lighters with the flame locked on, setting fire to themselves or their surroundings.

"We're having at least one SRO fire per day, mostly associated with smoking material," he said. "If the drugs weren't bad enough, now we've got this ignition source that's locked on where someone drops it or overdoses and now it's setting the whole room on fire."

The service says four people have died in fires so far in 2023, three of them involving blazes caused by smokers' materials.

"It's turned a bad situation even worse," Trudeau said. "If not for the sprinkler systems containing these fires, we would see a lot more buildings significantly damaged."

The fire service also said more than a quarter of all fires have been the result of arson, which it says is part of an upward trend in suspicious fire incidents.

The fire service is appealing to residents to make sure they have working smoke alarms, while encouraging smokers to properly put out their butts and for people to use battery-powered lights rather than candles.

Trudeau said the increase in fire calls is on top of other calls dealt with by first responders, including overdoses and mental health-related incidents, straining resources and taking a toll on crews.

"Last year we went to a really horrific scene where one of our crews was chased by (someone with) a machete on Granville," he said. "Our crews are very resilient, hard-working people, but we're human beings at the end of the day too, and it's hard seeing some of these really horrific incidents."

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 9, 2023.

News from © The Canadian Press, 2023