Crews called to fire at Langley hospital and industrial business

Firefighters had a busy 24 hours responding to calls, including a structure fire at Langley Memorial Hospital.

Just after 7:30 p.m. Wednesday Township of Langley fire crews responded to the local hospital for what initially came in as a structure fire with smoke inside on the first floor, explained Kevin Snowdon, assistant fire chief.

“[It] turned out to be a uninterruptible power supply that had shorted out and caught fire,” Snowdon said.

“The damage was contained to the unit itself, and the staff had already de-energized it and removed it from the building prior to our arrival.”

The fire sparked in a lab on the first floor of the hospital’s main building. The equipment, Snowdon described, was a large standup power backup unit similar to an older upright desktop computer, which was used to provide backup power to lab equipment.

“It appeared to be a problem on a circuit board inside the unit,” he said.

Five trucks attended the scene, where crews assisted with ventilation. No one was injured during the incident.

Then, early Thursday morning at 3 a.m. Township firefighters were called to a industrial business in Walnut Grove for a report of a structure fire.

“[It] turned out to be a fire inside a large above-ground liquid asphalt tank,” Snowdon said. “The tank was empty and the staff on scene had started up a direct flame burner that is used to preheat the tank before transferring product into it. Something went wrong and some of the residual material inside the tank briefly caught fire.”

Five trucks also attended the business at 19770 101st Ave. and remained on scene for nearly two hours to monitor that situation after the fire was extinguished due to the temperature of the equipment. No one was injured.

“Once the burner was shutdown, the fire quickly went out on its own, but temperatures inside the tank were quite high,” Snowdon said.

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