Firefighters in View Royal say they encountered several explosions as they battled a fire at a homeless camp on Thursday.
Fire crews were called to the area of Burnside Road and the Trans-Canada Highway, near Choices Transitional Home, around 10:30 a.m.
When they arrived they found an encampment fully engulfed in flames.
“There were propane tanks inside the structure itself, they were letting go and exploding when crews arrived,” said fire chief Paul Hurst.
According to Hurst, it was a scary call for firefighters because it wasn’t your “typical residential house where everything’s predictable.”
“If you look around the site we have 20 pound propane tanks, there were syringes, this whole site is contaminated,” said Hurst.
Nobody was inside the structure at the time.
Hurst says it’s too soon to tell what started the fire.
“On arrival crews found several people leaving this area so we’ll be turning that over to the RCMP to investigate, see if there was a malicious act here or if this was purely accidental,” Hurst added.
Shortly after crews arrived on scene they received another call of a crash on the island highway involving a pedestrian.
Officials are trying to determine if there’s a connection between the two.
