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Greater Trail fire crews busy with calls from all corners

Calls for help were burning up the phone lines at the regional fire centre in Trail this week.
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Fire Crews kept busy with calls from all corners

Calls for help were burning up the phone lines at the regional fire centre this week.

Kootenay Boundary Regional Fire Rescue sirens echoed throughout Greater Trail on Monday, beginning with a morning call out to a structure fire in the Beaver Valley area.

In that incident, a homeowner was burning grass when a gust of wind spread the flames to his nearby garden shed.

When crews arrived on the scene, the small storage unit was completely engulfed in flames.

“He couldn’t put the fire out with a garden hose,” said Terry Martin, regional fire chief. “The shed was consumed by fire but was contained and did not spread to the house.”

As crews were packing up in that area, fire rescue was called to a report of a deck fire at a residence across the valley.

The Rossland fire crew was dispatched to the scene after a passerby called in a fire, continued Martin.

“Nobody was home at the time,” he said. “Fortunately, it ended up being being a small fire with minimal damage to the deck.”

A few hours later, just after 4 p.m.,  the regional fire centre received a call from an alarm company reporting a fire at a home on the 1200 block of Third Ave. in East Trail. An elderly occupant had fallen asleep after leaving a pot on the stove, and the house had filled with smoke.

“We banged on the door and were able to get her out,” said Martin. “But we weren’t sure how long she had been in the smoke so she was transported to the hospital by ambulance.”

The small fire was contained to the pot and caused no damage to the home, however crews stayed on site to clear the house of smoke with an industrial fan.

“She had an alarm system, so when it detected smoke, dispatch was called,” he added. “So that worked out really well for her.”

Spring conditions had homeowners out with rakes over the weekend, but dry conditions and wind caused a residential grass fire to get out of hand, and prompted a call to the fire department.

Fire crews were summoned to a house east of Fruitvale Sunday afternoon for an out-of-control grass fire, said Martin.

“Fortunately, by the time we got there, the fire was contained and they were able to put it out themselves."

Later that day, fire rescue was called to Miral Heights to assist the BC Ambulance Service extricate a person off an all-terrain vehicle (ATV) trail.

Three firefighters hiked up almost two kilometres from the area’s ATV trail head to assist with the call.

“A local person came up the trail so we could put the basket stretch behind his quad,” explained the fire chief. “We were able to get the person safely out that way.”

 

 

 



Sheri Regnier

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