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Tyndall Stone fire displaces eight

Significant damage results at Purebread following balcony fire above stores

Every piece of Whistler Fire Service apparatus was dispatched to the Tyndall Stone Lodge Saturday, Nov. 23 after a hot spot developed following a fire at the building the previous night.

Assistant Fire Chief Sheila Kirkwood said a fire watch was put in place after a fire last night on a balcony. The hot spot was noted and called in.

“Crews are back on scene today just chasing down that hot spot,” said Kirkwood. “We’ve got all apparatus out right now — we’ve got five pieces of apparatus — working the fire with many crews working on the roof and the void spaces.”

Kirkwood said a bystander noticed the blaze Friday night and called in the fire. Nobody was hurt in the initial fire and eight people had to be evacuated from the suites in the building. Emergency Social Services made arrangements to have those people housed overnight at the Delta Whistler Village Suites.

Purebread on the main floor of the building was badly damaged. The Oracle suffered a less significant amount of damage. Also affected were Davids Tea, Taxback.com and the Bell Store.

“It started on an exterior balcony,” Kirkwood said.

“The building is under a renovation right now. There certainly have been crews working on scene. The fire is under investigation at this time.”

Martin Jean-Baptiste of Sea to Sky Security was on the scene to help with crowd control. He said his company has received lots of smoke detector false alarms recently. Many of those unneeded fire alerts, he said, were trigged by older smoke detectors that aren't working properly.

“If they are over ten years old you want to test them, you want to change them,” said Jean-Baptiste. “It’s your family, it’s your pets, it’s your life and it’s worth it to protect it.”