It was a busy weekend for members of the Quesnel Volunteer Fire Department who responded to 7 calls two of which were structure fires.
“The one from Sunday morning at 2 am was due to careless smoking,” says Sylvain Gauthier, Director of Emergency Services for the City of Quesnel.
“We figured that the member fell asleep in bed while smoking and his mattress caught fire.”
The apartment at Abbott Drive resulted in residual smoke and no injuries.
15 members meanwhile responded to a structure early Monday morning on Front Street.
“The corner of the building was involved in the fire. The matter is still under investigation,” says Gauthier noting that the abandoned building hasn’t been used in over 10 years.
Gauthier reminds residents to slow down when they see emergency vehicles and to pay attention to the road and not what’s happening on the side of the road.
“This morning at the fire on Front Street, a person driving a red pickup truck was basically paying attention to what was happening on the side of the road and drove over some firefighting equipment that was lying right beside the fire engine,” he says.
“Luckily for us, it’s just equipment. It could have been one of the volunteer members and that could have been a pretty serious accident had one of our members been hit by that vehicle.”