Four Fire Departments were on scene for over 11 hours battling a blaze Monday afternoon (May 5) at Pioneer Log Homes South of Williams Lake.
Cariboo Regional Fire Chief Roger Hollander said 150 Mile House Volunteer Fire Department was the initial Fire Department that was called in during the noon hour as it was in their Fire Protection Zone.
“They responded to a large log pile that was on fire. They ended up requesting mutual aid from the Williams Lake Fire Department as well as Wildwood and Miocene, RCMP and other agencies assisted as well.’
Hollander said the fire was burning on the west side of Pioneer Log Homes and fortunately there were no structures were involved.
“They had staff on site as well that were able to protect the other log piles and exposures from lighting up or igniting. So the staff did an incredible job to help protect that area as well.”
He noted that several pumper trucks over the course of the day were coming into the City of Williams Lake to get water.
“That’s quite common for tendering water back and forth,” Hollander said, “a lot of locations in these rural areas don’t have fire hydrants so you’ll often see tenders or large water tanker trucks shuttling water back and forth. We can pull that from various locations, in this case it was in the Williams Lake First Nation across the street, there was also some water being pulled from the hydrants in the City.”
Hollander said fire crews were on site until almost 11:30 Monday night.
“It’s an extensive length of time as other factors have to take place. Keeping firefighters hydrated and fed and they were able to do that successfully and fortunately there were no injuries to any of the firefighters that I am aware of. All of the Departments and Agencies worked incredibly well with each other and were able to contain that fire to that initial large log pile and fortunately it did not spread.”
Hollander noted that heavy machinery from staff on scene were able to pick apart those logs one by one and they were extinguished which takes a lot of time.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
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