On Saturday, Aug. 14, the Egmont & District Volunteer Fire Department was called to a house on Ruby Lake after a nearby tree caught fire.
Although someone took a cigarette butt back into the house after they’d finished smoking, they didn’t realize where they stamped it out had super dry material, Fire Chief Kal Helyar told Coast Reporter.
Later, a neighbour noticed a tree was on fire, and called the fire department around 11 p.m. The neighbours began hosing down the area, and mostly extinguished the fire before the firefighters arrived, Helyar said.
The volunteers brought three fire trucks and a water tanker to the scene. The department’s thermal imaging camera (TIC) was used to check for hot spots two hours later. A sprinkler was left on in the area overnight, and the captain checked the area with the TIC again in the morning. By that time, everything had cooled down and there was no damage from the fire.
Thermal imaging cameras can be used to look for hotspots, such as in chimney fires, or at the scenes of car accidents to determine how many people were in a vehicle, in case someone was thrown during the incident.
“People think, because we’ve had a tiny bit of rain, that everything’s good. But most areas are still tinder dry. It's a real worry,” Helyar said. “People need to be extremely careful because the potential for fire is still there.”
He said people should be cautious with any kind of ignition source, such as a cigarette or barbecue.
Campfires have been banned in B.C. since June 30, and smoking on trails is also prohibited at this time.
While Helyar said they expected to have more calls due to the volume of people in the area, sometimes the Egmont department will go several weeks without calls. During the week of the Aug. 14 fire, the volunteers received four calls.
