West Kelowna Fire Rescue extinguished a fire on the second floor of a dormitory at the Green Bay Bible Camp last night, Saturday, April 30, 2016.
Image Credit: Contributed/West Kelowna Fire Rescue
May 01, 2016 - 9:26 AM
WEST KELOWNA – Firefighters are praising the actions of staff and guests at the Green Bay Bible Camp in West Kelowna for their quick action when fire broke out in a dormitory last night.
Crews were called to the fire in the two-storey dorm at the bible camp on Green Bay Road at about 9:50 p.m., April 30, and found a fire in the lounge area on the second floor, according to a West Kelowna Fire Rescue media release.
Assistant fire chief Darren Lee says the quick action taken by staff and guests helped keep the people escaping the blaze safe and prevented the fire from growing rapidly.
“When the fire was discovered, one of more individuals quickly closed the doors to the lounge while they were evacuating,” he says in the release. “This simple act… prevented the rapidly growing fire from receiving the oxygen it needed to spread throughout the dormitory.”
Lee says the fire was burning against an interior wall and it had spread into the wall and attic space.
Firefighters worked in the thick smoke to knock down the fire with “an offensive interior fire attack” pulling down the drywall from the wall and ceilings to get at the flames, he says. Once they had the main fire under control, crews worked to protect the rest of the building from fire, smoke and water damage.
Crews remained on the scene overnight to watch for hot spots and flare-ups.
Investigators are on the scene this morning looking for the cause of the fire.
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