Provincial champs Barsby
Bulldogs take top spot in AA varsity football for the second consecutive year. PAGE 24
www.nanaimobulletin.com
TUESDAY, DECEMBER 9, 2014
VOL. 26, NO. 60
Deadly apartment fire started in upholstered chair, say investigators BY CHRIS BUSH THE NEWS BULLETIN
CHRIS BUSH/THE NEWS BULLETIN
Value Village staffers Jesse Hickox, left, Amanda Trimble, Bola Komolafe and Cindy McKinnon check out the Nanaimo store’s stock of ugly sweaters and other holiday haberdashery for men and women. Ugly sweaters and accessories have become a fashion force to be reckoned with this Christmas.
Ugly is hip when it comes to sweaters BY TAMARA CUNNINGHAM THE NEWS BULLETIN
I
t could be the only time of the year when ugly is actually a compliment. Ugly Christmas sweaters are trending this season with retail outlets and thrift shops lining racks with over-the-top holiday clothing. Businesses are mimicking kitschy sweater prints on everything from uniforms to disposable cups. People are hosting theme parties. Even the City of
Nanaimo has jumped on the bandwagon, declaring Dec. 19 Ugly Christmas Sweater Day in support of the Now That’s Ugly Society, a not-for-profit which raises money for the Children’s Wish Foundation. Those following the trend agree the sweater is fun, quirky and all the rage, according to Jordan Birch, chief experience officer with the Now That’s Ugly Society – and it’s just getting started. Thirteen years ago Birch and his friend got match-
ing penguin sweaters and helped host an ugly Christmas sweater party. The sweaters were rare then. “You typically wouldn’t see someone wearing it unless it was probably an older person at a craft fair,” Birch said. “Now, I mean, you can’t go online or walk down the street or go to a Christmas party without seeing somebody wearing an ugly Christmas sweater – you just can’t.” These days the party Birch helped get started
is at Vancouver’s Commodore Ballroom and is set to attract 2,000 people. The society has also started an ugly sweater dash and called on municipalities to proclaim Dec. 19 as Ugly Christmas Sweater Day to spread the word about the social cause behind the trend. “It’s fun. It’s an excuse to be silly and it’s an excuse to kind of be yourself,” said Birch, who considers the sweaters a social or cultural phenomenon.
See ‘SWEATERS’ /4
Fire investigators don’t know what caused an upholstered chair to catch fire, but have concluded it was the origin of a blaze in an apartment that killed seven-year-old Dominik Ambrose David Billy. Nanaimo Fire Rescue, private fire investigators and electrical safety inspectors looked into the cause of the Nov. 29 blaze at 361 Albert St. The results of the investigation were released Friday by the B.C. Coroners Office. “There was a recliner chair in the living room in the area of the origin of the fire,” said Capt. Ennis Mond, head of the fire department’s fire and loss prevention division. “We could not find what started the fire. There was nothing in the area of origin that ignited the materials ... so that’s what it is.” One way investigators determine a fire’s origin is by looking at the magnitude of burn damage, which is often most intense where a fire started because it is the area that burns the longest and has the greatest amount of time to do the most damage. Unfortunately in the case of the Albert Street fire, the chair, which was located in the living room of the apartment, was so badly burned that any traces of what might have ignited it are gone. “We did find there was a hard-wired smoke alarm, but the breaker had been shut off – not tripped off, shut off,” Mond said. The breaker panel for the apartment, which the smoke alarm is wired to, is located in the master bedroom adjacent to the living room. Mond does not know when the alarm’s circuit breaker was switched off or why. He said he talked with witnesses, including police officers who were first on scene. Those interviews, combined with physical evidence, left no doubt that the fire started in the recliner chair in the living room, Mond said. The most recent fire-related death in the Nanaimo area prior to the Albert Street fire occurred in Lantzville in February when David William Birnie, 55, died in a garage fire. photos@nanaimobulletin.com
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