3 suspicious fires overnight in Crown Point
Boat, vehicle, garage all torched within 45 minutes of each other
Chris Pardiac learned his boat was on fire when his eight-year-old daughter started screaming hysterically about 1:30 a.m. Saturday.
She was watching flames shoot up around the outside of her firstfloor bedroom on Connaught Avenue North, in the neighbourhood of Crown Point.
Pardiac sprinted outside and managed to pull the blazing motorboat away from the house with the help of a passerby.
“There was a full tank of gas in it. Luckily, it didn’t explode,” he said Saturday, overlooking the charred vessel surrounded by police tape.
Firefighters quickly doused the boat — along with two other suspicious fires a short walk away, along Barton Street East, all within 45 minutes or so of each other.
No one was injured in the fires, but all three sites were guarded by Hamilton police Saturday, awaiting a visit from arson and Ontario Fire Marshal investigators.
“Just given the proximity of the scenes and the timeline, the Ontario Fire Marshal’s office was called in,” said fire department spokesperson Claudio Mostacci.
Pardiac said the boat, normally stored up against the outside of his two-storey home, has been broken into twice before, but this was the first time anyone ever tried to damage it. He said only the motor and trailer were likely salvageable.
Pardiac said he’d heard from police about the nearby fires, but wasn’t familiar with the properties.
Mostacci said a garage and a vehicle were also torched farther east, along Barton Street East, with about $2,000 and $70,000 in estimated damage, respectively.
Police tape prevented access to the back alley Saturday where the garage blaze occurred, but a fire marshal investigator could be seen examining the property.