Police in a small B.C. community believe one of the town’s biggest attractions was deliberately set on fire.
The world’s largest preserved burl was on display in Port McNeill on Vancouver Island.
A burl is an abnormal swelling on a branch or trunk of a tree that is caused by a disturbance to the wood cells. Some of them can grow very large.
The one in Port McNeill came from a Sitka spruce and was discovered in Holberg in 2005.
According to the Guinness Book of World Records, it weighed nearly 30 tonnes and was cut from a 525-year-old spruce that was almost 20 feet wide and almost 20 feet tall with a circumference of about 45 feet.
In the early morning hours of May 18, the burl and its structure went up in flames.
Police said they were called at 1:29 a.m. and it was fully engulfed when Port McNeill’s Fire Rescue team arrived.
The protective structure was completely destroyed and the burl suffered extensive damage.
CCTV from the area shows two suspects carrying what appears to be a yellow jerry can in the area of the burl around 11:19 p.m., the time the fire started, police said.
While still early in the investigation, this fire appears to have been a deliberate act with the apparent intent to destroy the town’s prized point of interest,
Sgt. Curtis Davis, detachment commander for the Port McNeill RCMP said in a release.
We are releasing still images from the CCTV in hopes that someone will recognize and report the two suspects.
Anyone with any information about the identity of the two suspects or this fire is asked to contact the Port McNeill RCMP at 250-956-4441.
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