Belcarra blaze ‘blows away’ resident
GoFundMe account seeks donations for family who lost nearly everything
It was a typical Sunday afternoon, and Greg Melanson had packed up his teens for the drive to their mother’s house in Burnaby after a stay at his beautiful, multi-storey rental home overlooking Indian Arm.
By the time they arrived about half an hour later, he got a call from the owner of the sailboat docked at the house in Belcarra for repairs, telling him the house was in flames, said Melanson, a marine mechanic and single dad of four.
“It blows me away,” said Melanson. “It didn’t take long for it to go. It’s hard to handle.”
The fire spread to a house next door, and “it went down in 20 minutes.”
The sailboat owner, Lyle Franklin, said he was on the boat and didn’t hear anything — “I was having a few drinks, I had the tunes playing” — but noticed police on the dock.
“Then I looked up and saw the flames,” he said. “In a few minutes it was blazing.
“The officers took off, they jumped on a boat and left, and I was sort of stuck on the dock, and I was looking at this towering building about to come down. I was standing at the end of the dock and I turned around and I could feel the heat on my neck. I was just waiting for (the house) to fall down.”
Franklin was rescued by a tug, who pulled him and his boat to safety.
By that time, Melanson had returned to watch the house he had lived in for three years and all his worldly possessions disappear. There was a tenant living in the basement but he had left the house about an hour before the Melansons that day. A neighbour handed Melanson a big glass of whisky and he watched helplessly as the garage was left to the flames because firefighters had drained the town’s reservoir and he was told they had no water left to save it.
“My whole shop was in there,” he said. Melanson also lost the money for parts he had ordered for clients’ boats and $5,000 in savings. His belongings weren’t insured. “I can buy some new clothes,” he said. “It’s more about what my kids lost.”
That includes Mystique, a blackand-white cat belonging to his stepdaughter, 16-year-old Victoria Thien. The cat hasn’t been found, and they’re hoping it ran off scared and will return.
Victoria will stay with her siblings Brooke, 16, and Lucas, 13, at their mother’s in Burnaby until Melanson can find a new place to stay. (A fourth child lives in Merritt.)
“That’s the most important thing right now for me,” he said.
Melanson was on his way to a temporary job in Kelowna on Sunday and has tools and a knapsack with some clothes.
“I’ve got to get this job done, get a few bucks in my pocket,” he said from Kelowna on Tuesday.
Sean Thomson, counsellor at his children’s school, Burnaby Mountain secondary, has started a Go Fund Me account for donations (the school is not involved).
“Initially I saw the news stories and I saw that it was Belcarra and I thought those people probably have lots of money,” he said. “But then I found out he was just renting the place and I knew the kids.”
“These kids lost all their clothing, bedroom furniture, photos, electronics, and mementos from their childhood,” says the GoFundMe page.
Melanson is trying to stay positive and in gratitude. “You just have to laugh and smile and take the day as it comes,” said Melanson. “At least my kids have a place to stay.”