The Quesnel Volunteer Fire Department responded to 440 calls in 2017, which was up slightly from the previous year.
Fire Chief Sylvain Gauthier says that included 21 calls for structure fires, including three for house fires and a couple for large fires at mills.
“We had a few memorable fires, one at Cariboo Pulp and Paper in the boiler room when they had a major fire at the back of the mill. That was interesting and we were there for a while. The second mill that we had a fire at was the Pacesetter mill in July. That created challenges too because we were close to timber.”
Gauthier says they also helped out with the wildfires in 2017…
“We had 21 volunteer members that provided fire services for forest fires with the forestry services, and the members were deployed for approximately 37 days.”
All tolled, Gauthier says the members provided over 63-hundred hours in fire response and fire training in 2017, which was up from less than 6 thousand in the previous year.