VIDEO: Fire damages Vancouver port coal terminal

No injuries reported at Roberts Bank facility

Fire rages at the Westshore Terminals coal loader in Vancouver, BC. (Photo: Screenshot from social media video)

No injuries were reported after a machinery fire damaged a marine coal terminal at the Port of Vancouver.

Video posted on social media showed thick black smoke billowing from the blaze at Westshore Terminals on Friday at Roberts Bank, British Columbia. The fire was extinguished by local first responders, the Vancouver Fraser Port Authority said in a statement. Operations at the terminal, just over the U.S. border, and at a neighboring facility operated by GCT Deltaport were temporarily shut down.

Delta Fire & Emergency Services in a posting to X said the fire was limited to a conveyor belt and is not considered suspicious.

Westshore bills itself as Canada’s busiest export coal terminal, handling 36 million tons a year.

There was no immediate word on when operations would resume. 

Find more articles by Stuart Chirls here.

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Stuart Chirls

Stuart Chirls is a journalist who has covered the full breadth of railroads, intermodal, container shipping, ports, supply chain and logistics for Railway Age, the Journal of Commerce and IANA. He has also staffed at S&P, McGraw-Hill, United Business Media, Advance Media, Tribune Co., The New York Times Co., and worked in supply chain with BASF, the world's largest chemical producer. Reach him at stuartchirls@firecrown.com.