Stove Fire Damages French Road Home

Crews were dispatched to an afternoon fire today to a home on French Road. Arriving on scene, firefighters found a two storey home with light smoke coming from upper windows. The badly shaken homeowner was located in the back yard. While it appeared the fire was out, crews entered the house to determine what was occurring. A stove top fire had spread up the wall and into the adjacent cupboard. It appeared the homeowner had extinguished most of the fire with cups of water, however hotspots were still found in several areas. These were quickly extinguished. Significant smoke damage was observed throughout the top floor of the home and crews set up two fans to clear the air. Upon inspection of the attic, heavy smoke was found throughout this area. Upon further investigation it was determined that the fire had moved up through the vent pipe of the kitchen hood fan to the attic. At the point where the metal duct hit the attic space, two plastic dryer vent type hoses were attached and then up to the roof vent. Most of the ducting had burnt or melted and charing was found up the stud spaces and into the attic. This area was checked with a thermal image camera and several pieces of melted insulation were also removed. It was evident that the fire was only one or two minutes away from causing significant damage to the second floor and roof of the building. The smoke detector was also missing from its location. The homeowner was transported to VGH by ambulance. From the state of the fire, it appears she was very lucky to escape.

Impaired Drivers Play Havoc on Otter Point Road

Fire crews had a busy weekend dealing with 3 separate motor vehicle crashes, all apparently involving impaired drivers. The first incident occured in the Otter Point District when a speeding vehicle left the road, hit and sheered off a hydro pole, rolled over and then crashed into the brush where it then caught on fire. Otter Point firefighters arrived on scene but could not access the fire due to the downed pole and hydro lines across the roadway. A callout to Sooke had several apparatus respond from the other side of the incident. With Engine 1 out of service with a broken water pump, Ladder 1 responded with backup from Tender 1 if additional water was required. Crews successfully extinguished the fully involved jeep and the surrounding cedar trees that were also burning. It appears the driver was thrown clear, but fortunately for the passenger, neighbours and bystanders pulled him out before the fire grew in size. Passerbys were also shocked to find hundreds of dollars in bills and coins scattered amongst all the debris from the car crash.
The second incident just a day later occured at the Dumont Tire site when an out of control vehicle being pursued by Sooke RCMP left the roadway and entered the parking lot where it struck a large vehicle spinning it around. Unfortunately one of the employees was next to the car when it was struck. He was thrown into the air, hitting and breaking the back window of a second vehicle before being thrown about 20 feet further where he landed on the asphalt parking area. The original vehicle continued to travel hitting another parked vehicle which then collided with another parked vehicle. Five vehicles in all were damaged, several likely to be written off. The employee suffered broken ribs, a deflated lung, several serious facial lacerations and injuries to his leg although many consider him lucky to be alive. The driver was not injured and was arrested by police and faces a variety of charges.
Just a few hours later, crews responded to the 2600 block of Otter Point Road where an ATV had crashed. The impaired driver, without a helmet had been racing up and down the road, narrowly being hit by the fire chief only 20 minutes earlier when he was seen racing down the centre line of the roadway. He turned into a driveway, talked to the occupants of the property who did not know him and then watched him race away. Just before he was about to reenter the roadway, he hit a large rock and was thrown from the ATV. The driver was knocked unconscious and suffered facial and hand lacerations. He was taken to VGH for treatment and also faces a variety of charges.
Tough times to be on the road. Just goes to show you can never be to careful when you have drivers like these sharing the roads with us.

News of the Week

Congratulations to the new Executive of the Firefighters Association. Without these people stepping up, there would be no association so thank you to President Doug Brown, Vice President Luke Grabove, Secretary Jason Dixon and Treasurer Elaine Kouwenberg and all of those firefighters that agreed to be on the many committees that make this organization go. Also a thank you to the outgoing executive and committee members for their work over the past year.

It was with regret that I accepted the resignation of LT. Greg Alexander as he moves onto a new career path as Fire Chief of the James Island Fire Department. We certainly wish him the best of luck and any help we can offer as he takes on this exciting challenge. With Gregs retirement we now only have 7 active officers left in the department (Lt. Poirier will soon be leaving for the remainder of the year so I am not counting him) This puts quite a strain on the duty officer rotation as each officer will now have to take on several extra weeks of duty shifts until such time as we can get some new officers trained and ready to go. With numbers so low, I encourage are senior firefighters to help out with training and other duties to relieve some of this added stress.

I see the auto extrication team is back to training as they have been able to secure some vehicles. An opportunity to take a weekend auto x course in Mill Bay on school bus rescue is coming up. Look on the bulletin board for more information

The new washing machines have arrived. The Station 1 unit is up and running while the Station 2 unit will soon be operational, however Luke needs to do some plumbing first. These machines are the RED ones. They are only to be used for turnout gear or coveralls. Remember to separate the liner from the outer shell before washing. Instructions will be posted on each machine. Also make sure you note the date of washing in the book as this is an important requirement by WCB.

Two new Honda pumps were purchased to replace the two oldest pumps in the forestry trailer. They operate the same as the older models.

Attendance letters will soon be going out to all members who are low on their training or attendance hours. Please make a note of where you are and the requirements that are neccessary to maintain your membership. Each of the recruits will also get a letter specifying where they are in their training program and any thing that they will require before being eligible to take their final exams in May. A recruit drive is about to begin for the next class so if you know of anyone interested in becoming a member encourage them to put in an application.

Busy Week

Staff have been extra busy it seems this week with many things going on. The budget continues to be the biggest item on the agenda as it works its way through channels. Committee of the Whole decided to accept the budget and pass it on to council and the public hearing process. They want to hear from the public on what they think of the new proposed firefighter position before making a final decision.

Several plans have come across my desk for review and these are for major developments. The next phase of the Prestige Hotel is the first one as we look at the fire alarms and other emergency system designs for the building. Construction of the restaurant section on the second floor is well underway. Mariners Landing has had their Development Permit approved and construction will likely begin in May on the first building. Shoppers Drug Mart has applied for a development permit for their new store which will be about 18,000 sq ft in size. (for a comparrison, the entire fire hall / municipal complex is 22,500 sq ft in area. This is a large store. They plan to be open for business on Nov 25 (this year). The Sooke Arena is upgrading its infrastructure and it is expected that work will begin before summer on the new change rooms and second floor addition.
Tenders for design of the first section of the new connector road will soon be going out. Phase 1 will see the Throup Road extended from Charters to Phillips Road, just behind the arena. This project is expected to cost approximately $3,000,000.00. Work is expected to get underway in late 2010 or early 2011. This will be done with money currently in the budget.
The municipal boat launch and pier work will soon be started. An addition to the boardwalk is also expected to be part of this development. Much of this project is funded through grants and a large contribution from Prestige Hotels. Speaking of the hotel, Ric's Grill has been named the restaurant and food services operator for this development.
The Spiritwood subdivision continues to make its way through the process. This site will have approximately 450 units when completed. The site is behind Firwood Road and the developers will provide sewer connections to the entire area.
New "Way Signs" have been approved for the down town area. These very attractive sign posts, made with a sail boat theme will be placed in strategic areas of the community to indicate direction to businesses and services in the community. Sites identified as possible locations include Phillips Rd and Sooke Rd, Church Road at Sooke Rd, Otter Point and Sooke Road and Whiffin Spit and Sooke Road. Area businesses will be able to purchase a sign board to be installed on these sign posts.
Several other large projects are also in the works. I will discuss them when they are ready.

Windstorm Keeps Emergency Crews Busy

Well it appears that big wind Lambert is a jinx when it comes to windstorms although this last one did not cause him to loose his home at least. Some of you may remember a small breeze that cut its way through Sooke two or three years ago. Seems that the Duty Officer on that night was Lt. Lambert and it appears that we are now experiencing round two. Five calls were received in the morning hours of Good Friday. It began around 8:30 with a report of a tree on power lines on West Coast Rd. This was followed by a second call on one minute later reporting lines down and burning on Sooke River Rd. While responding to that, two more calls were received. The first for a tree and power lines down further out on West Coast Road and then for a tree on a house on Calvert Road with a somewhat concerned pregnant woman inside. This coupled with another serious set of trees and wires down on Otter Point Rd., completely closed off all access to points west of Sooke. Thanks to quick working fire crews, along with help from BC Hydro, RCMP, Sooke Towing and Otter Point FD all incidents were safely handled and traffic was back to normal within a couple of hours. The final truck was back in the station by 11:30 although many residents will be without power for some hours yet.