Fire chief Larry Watkinson is seen at outside the Warren House on Lakeshore Drive in Penticton after an explosion caused it to become a fully-involved structure fire, Monday, March 7, 2022.
Image Credit: SUBMITTED/Penticton fire photographer Mike Biden
March 09, 2022 - 6:30 AM
The historical building lost yesterday on Penticton’s northern waterfront was as a symbol of the wealth associated with the Kettle Valley Railway.
The Warren House was destroyed by fire yesterday, March 6, following an explosion.
Neighbour Dave Lieskovsky felt the explosion from inside his home four doors down on Lakeshore Drive.
“You could feel it,” he said. “It wasn’t a thunder boom, it was like an explosion. And that was from four doors down – I can’t imagine what it would have been like from next door.”
The two-storey Georgian Revival-style Warren House was named after the man it was built for – JJ Warren, the former president of the KVR who was instrumental in its construction. His home was a reflection of the prosperity he added to the community.
When the KVR opened in 1912 it put the South Okanagan on the map. Before railway infrastructure came to the South Okanagan, the only practical way to reach Penticton was by sea, and that prevented its economy from supporting structures as large and luxurious as the Warren House.
“It retain(ed) the historic character of Lakeshore Drive as the prime location of genteel residences built for the moneyed class in the era of economic growth and maturity of the city during the early twentieth century,” reads the city’s historical registry.
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In its most recent years, the Warren House was a bed and breakfast that the owners lived in.
Dave’s wife, Viv Lieskovsky, who’s a member of the city’s Heritage and Museum Advisory Committee, said she’s still shaking and reeling from the fire.
“A loss like this we’ll never get back,” Viv said, adding that it was the oldest home on the street.
The heritage registry says the home was built in 1912, but Viv said the owner had found a board on an inside wall marked 1911.
Viv was eating lunch at a restaurant when Dave sent her a photo of the fire, and she got there as soon as she could.
“On my way there I saw smoke and by they time I arrived, at that point the house was fully engulfed, it was so rapid,” she said. “That fire was so powerful.”
Viv among a large crowd of locals watching the devastation.
“We just couldn’t believe it, just in shock,” she said.
The fire department shut off the gas to nearby properties, include the Lieskovskys, until late Monday night.
“It was an old wooden structure, we really have to give credit to the fire department for doing such an amazing preventing it from moving to the surrounding buildings.”
Fire chief Larry Watkinson said it was probably the largest house explosion he's been called to in his 23 years as a firefighter. The fire hall is only a few blocks away on Nanaimo Avenue and crews responded immediately. But the home was already engulfed in flames because of the explosion.
So much damage was caused that Watkinson isn't sure if the investigation into the cause will reach a full conclusion.
"An older wooden building like that, with all the windows blown out – it creates this perfect environment for fire to establish itself," he said.
First on scene were three firefighters and a chief officer, and eventually there was a total of 25 members and five pieces of fire apparatus, Watkinson said. Crews were on scene for about five hours.
"It was all hands on deck," he said.
The Summerland Fire Department kept an eye on the rest of Penticton while local firefighters were on Lakeshore Drive putting out the blaze.
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