Okanagan firefighters helping battle wildfires in northeastern B.C.
Global News
In addition to the Kelowna firefighters, members from both the Peachland and Lake Country fire departments are also lending their support in the Fort St. John area.
A longtime Kelowna firefighter spent Wednesday training a new batch of recruits.
Come Saturday, though, his focus — and location — will shift dramatically.
Larry Keating says he and two other colleagues will be travelling to fire-ravaged areas near Fort St. John to relieve three other Kelowna firefighters.
An evacuation alert issued for Fort St. John was rescinded on Wednesday morning, and the wildfire that triggered it is still deemed to be burning out of control.
There are now four fires in the area making up the North Peace Fire Complex.
“We’ll be doing some structure protection, as well as basically patrols to make sure that the fire hasn’t encroached into the city limits and or any of the properties or outlying areas,” Keating told Global News. “So that’s that’s our task.”
Along with sending three members north, the fire department is also dispatching one of its trucks.
“We look to our crews to see if we have crews who are available to go and are willing to go up for that period of time. They have to deploy for 14 days,” said Dwight Seymour, deputy fire chief with the Kelowna Fire Department (KFD).