MY iPhone 4S Captures ANOTHER SUSPICIOUS Brampton Farmhouse Fire…

HERE WE GO…yet another abandoned Brampton farmhouse…already sold to developers…mysteriously catches fire…in the middle of the night! 

For a hundred years the house sits blaze-free and then only a couple of years after it gets snapped up by a home building company…whoop, whoop…"FIRE!!!!!!!"

I saw it in the distance at 1:30 am and called it in.   

When I arrived at 1:37am…the Brampton Fire Department was already there.

I mean this was quite the blaze.  The nearest fire engine pumper (you can see it right beside the house) had been dousing the home with a steady stream of water for what seemed like an eternity…didn't even slow those arson-engineered flames down!

It costs some coin to raze an old farm home property.

It costs $40 of gas to pre-soak a farm-home's interior and 5 cents for the matches.

Basically…free.

Couldn't a land developer get a permit to do a controlled burn of these old properties?

Na.  Too risky in this case.  The city of B-Town would never approve it.  The proximity of other farmhouses and/or other residential, industrial properties poses too great a risk. You might end up with two blazes.

  

For instance, with this particular property located at approximately 10146 the Gore Road, Castlemore, there was a real concern amongst the firefighters about the residential property located just north of the blaze.  The sheer volume of smoke spewing thousands of live embers was certainly a sight to behold by me, AND not taken lightly, or as entertainment, by the Brampton Fire Department.  They stationed ready pumpers at the northern property, and one at the property just south of the 'fire'.  Several pumpers remained on "The Gore" to respond quickly to ANY changing conditions.

And conditions DID change.

I was engulfed in one such change and had to move (…and, I was more than 200 feet away!) as the smoke column flattened out, suddenly swung westward, and lowered so that I could look directly overhead and watch dancing embers sail by.  No wonder these firefighters are so concerned!  I moved moments later when I then felt the wall of intense heat that accompanied the fast-moving, jet-black billowing overhead.

One never has a proper camera…or a bag of marshmallows…at the oppertune moment.

Judging by the FD talkback on the pumper-truck PAs…the thick, black, billowing column of smoke laced with live embers that was over a half mile long…posed more of a concern to the northern property.

'Course, no one ever talks about the cost to scramble half the City of Brampton's Fire Department, the area police units, and the paramedic teams I saw perched, ready to respond further for what will be 10 hour stationing, or more, while the fire plays itself out.

Dire Straits sang a song that included the line, "Money for nothin' and chicks for free…"

What we have here in Brampton is our own lyrics that could be easily interjected into the legendary Dire Straits "Money For Nothing" song.

Here's one line from my adapted version,  "…Razed buildings and emergency support services for free…"

Razing or blazing…probably costs about the same, $20,000 - $30,000.

What's the difference then?

One the developer pays for…and one the City pays for.

And you wonder why your City of Brampton property taxes are double or triple what Torontonians pay for equivalently valued properties!

I can think of at least 10 unsolved Brampton area mystery fires…that…'just happened'. 

I'm not talking about any of the "Laidlaw Lane" fires that took down Laidlaw family farm barns.  We know who did that.  Farm-hand's son gone berserk. Case closed. Rather sadly I might add.

But what of these other fires.

Hey, anyone thought of calling Pam Douglas?