Busy night for Fire Rescue: structure fire and vehicle crash

Fire-Rescue teams responded to a forestry road in the Central Okanagan to deal with a vehicle crash.

On Saturday, Dec. 9 around 8:30 p.m., West Kelowna Fire Rescue was called to a vehicle over the bank approximately 8 km up Bear Lake Main Forest Service Road.

“Arriving units found a single vehicle over the bank, approximately 70 feet down an extremely steep and treacherous slope,” Brent Watson, deputy fire chief, said. “A firefighter was lowered down the bank equipped with a specialized harness to bring the patient – who was out of the vehicle – back up the slope.”

Watson said crews from West Kelowna and Wilson’s Landing worked together to bring the shaken, but uninjured man, up to the Bear Lake Main FSR, where he was checked over by BC Ambulance.

There were no injuries, and aside from icy, snow covered roads, the rescue was conducted without issue.

Meantime, just before 6 p.m the same evening, West Kelowna Fire Rescue responded to a reported structure fire in the 2000 block of Bartley Road in West Kelowna.

“On arrival, crews found a large shed on fire with road sand and heavy equipment inside. The fire was quickly extinguished, allowing the equipment to be safely removed without incident,” Watson said.

The fire is not suspicious and may have been caused by a faulty wood stove in the structure.