One of the four port-a-potties which were set on fire during a four hour window on Sunday, Jan. 16. (Nanaimo RCMP)

By NanaimoNewsNOW Staff

dangerous fires

Arsonists target four Nanaimo portable toilets

Jan 25, 2022 | 10:59 AM

NANAIMO — Local Mounties are investigating after a string of fires were apparently deliberately set inside public portable toilets throughout the city.

Nanaimo Fire Rescue crews were called out to four separate incidents over a four and a half hour period on the evening of Sunday, Jan. 16.

Cst. Gary O’Brien told NanaimoNewsNOW it’s believed the same person is responsible for most, if not all, of the incidents.

“It’s extremely troubling, where they going to go from there? Are they going to go from there? Are they going to try and burn something else?”

Fast action by Nanaimo Fire Rescue ensured the toilets were not destroyed, O’Brien said.

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The firebug wave began at 7:22 p.m. in the 800 block of Old Victoria Rd, before a second fire was reported 26 minutes later on Wharf St.

Two hours passed before another fire was reported at the corner of Bastion St. and Skinner St. before the final fire was set around 11:55 p.m. at the corner of Terminal Ave. and Victoria Cres.

“We are certainly following up on a lot of avenues, but right now we only have some people of interest, we have not made any arrests associated to these,” O’Brien said, who noted no witnesses have come forward yet.

He said several portable toilets have burned periodically in recent years in downtown Nanaimo, but those were isolated incidents.

A pair of fires to garbage bins at Port Place shopping centre around the same time frame the portable toilets were torched appear to be unrelated incidents, O’Brien said.

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