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UPDATE – RCMP say campfire to blame for Strathcona Park grass fire in Kamloops

Victor Kaisar
Apr 19, 2023 | 2:51 PM


UPDATE - RCMP say campfire to blame for Strathcona Park grass fire in Kamloops

UPDATE 5:20 p.m. – Kamloops RCMP say the large grass fire in Strathcona Park this afternoon is being treated as criminal in nature.

“The Kamloops fire department and BC Wildfire Service did an amazing job extinguishing the fire quickly and preventing it from spreading further,” Kamloops RCMP Superintendent Jeff Pelley said, in a news release.

“The origin of the fire has been established as a campfire and we’re now conducting a criminal investigation.”

He noted that a camp had recently been established in the area, with Mounties now wanting to speak to anyone who may have information related to how the blaze occurred or know who is responsible.

Pelley says officers remain on scene collecting physical evidence and gathering statements.

While the fire came close to some houses – as seen in pictures sent to NL News – the City says no homes or other structures were impacted.

“We did deploy some of our resources there to set up structural protection equipment so that we could protect those homes if the fire did get close enough to activate that,” Fire Chief Ken Uzeloc told NL News. “Thankfully crews got it under control quickly and none of the homes were actually threatened.”

“We had all of our on duty resources in one shape or another. We have a number of engines there, we also had water tenders and bush trucks so we had crews from all stations responding…We’re just on scene making sure that we’re getting all the hot spots, making sure everything is soaked down well, so that we’re not going get any flare ups into this evening.”

The BC Wildfire Service and Kamloops Community Service Officers were also called to this fire in the area of Powers Road and Strathcona Terrace which broke out around 2:30 p.m. Wednesday.

“There is a little bit of a gully in there with brush so it did make that a little difficult but we also had support from the BC Wildfire Service,” Uzeloc added. “They had a crew on scene and we were looking at the ability to bring in a helicopter to assist if we needed that. We didn’t need the helicopter eventually.

Area residents told NL News that flames picked up quite quickly when the fire first started, appeared to reach anywhere from 30 to 40 feet in height.

“The flames were going straight up in the air and its now moved up the hillside towards the houses that look over the bridge,” RadioNL listener Stacy said just before 3 p.m.

“I saw some first responder fire truck lights headed up that way. And yeah, lots of smoke, lots of flames. Not sure what started it, but it sure moved up that hill awfully quick.”

As many as 3,800 BC Hydro customers were without power on both sides of the Thompson River.

Those with information about the fire are asked to contact the Kamloops RCMP Detachment at 250-828-3000 and reference file 2023-13341.

 

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