What crews believed to be a late night car fire turned out to be something that could have been much worse.
When West Kelowna Fire Rescue arrived to a report of a vehicle fire near the intersection of Gellatly Road and Angus Drive at 11:07 p.m. June 20, they spotted fire and smoke showing from a wooded area above several homes on Angus Drive.
“The crew from Engine 31 realized that this was not a vehicle fire and upgraded the response to a 2nd alarm wildland fire,” said Darren Lee, the assistant fire chief of the WK Fire Department, in a press release.
“With the assistance of Engine 32 (Lakeview Heights) fire crews were able to stretched a 2 1/2” hose through an adjacent residence and extent wildland hose packs to attack the fire.”
Once the fire was knocked-down, West Kelowna firefighters worked to establish a hand-guard around the perimeter of the fire. Preliminary investigation indicates that the fire was caused by an unattended cooking fire in a make-shift camp.
WKFR responded with a total of three engines, one water tender, one wildland unit and one command unit for a total of 21 firefighters to the scene.
Additional units were called to back-fill Westbank, Lakeview Heights and Rose Valley during the incident. WKFR was supported by West Kelowna RCMP and BC Ambulance.