A waterfront cabin burned down on May 2, 2018.
(CHARLOTTE HELSTON - REPORTER / iNFOnews.ca)
May 07, 2018 - 6:30 PM
NORTH OKANAGAN - A pair of devastating fires last week on the Okanagan Indian Band reserve near Vernon have reignited concerns about fire protection services in the community.
Two residences — a trailer and a cabin — burned to the ground last week in separate fires. Now, there are questions around the Okanagan Indian Band’s fire department and how it responded to the fires. Some residents say they do not feel adequately protected.
Resident Wendy Underhill, who lives on Okanagan Lake just off Louis Estates Road, was woken up at 4:30 a.m. on Wednesday, May 2, by a nearby neighbour asking her to phone the fire department. His waterfront cabin was on fire. Underhill could hear the fire crackling and told her young daughter to get ready to leave while she phoned in the emergency.
“It was quite a hassle to call 911,” Underhill says. “(They) put me on hold, and then phoned this (other) place, and put me on hold again before they got a hold of the fire department here. Well, by then his house was done.”
She estimates waiting on the phone for ten minutes before being told help was on the way, and thinks it was at least half an hour before anyone arrived.
“Ten minutes is a long time when you have a fire going,” Underhill says. “If my frickin house goes up in flames, I’m not going to have the patience to wait how many minutes for them to figure out which department they dispatch. That’s a problem... There has to be a better protocol.”
Another challenge, she says, was explaining the location of the fire to the dispatcher. Underhill lives on a narrow dirt road, one that didn’t have have a formal name until she applied for one last July. But, Goat Trail Road as she named it, still doesn’t show up on Google Maps, making it difficult for emergency personnel to find it.
By the time a fire truck showed up, the cabin was destroyed, Underhill says. Fortunately for neighbours like Underhill, firefighters were able to stop the fire from spreading to nearby residences.
The other fire also appears to have broken out on Wednesday night. A pile of burnt rubble is all that remains now of a trailer parked on Westside Road, near Head of the Lake Road. Neighbours say the fire started around 1 a.m. and the man renting the trailer made it out safely. One person associated with the property, who declined an interview, says he’s not surprised the trailer burned to the ground because when there’s a fire on the reserve, nothing ever gets saved. The fire department is too far away.
A source in a position of knowledge who spoke to iNFOnews.ca on the condition of anonymity says preventing fires from spreading is “all that department can do” with its limited resources. This source says only four firefighters responded to Wednesday’s trailer fire, and did not have enough members qualified to enter the structure to perform a rescue, if one was needed.
“If someone was in there that needed help, they die. It’s that simple,” the source says.
READ MORE: Why no one’s coming to rescue Okanagan Indian Band firefighters
A pile of scorched rubble is all that's left of a trailer on Westside Road.
(CHARLOTTE HELSTON - REPORTER / iNFOnews.ca)
The two fires come after a letter was sent by a number of fire department members to the band council outlining serious safety concerns at the hall, such as lack of training, insufficient equipment and poor leadership. Sources say seven firefighters resigned over the issues earlier this year, and two more were fired, leaving an undisclosed number of remaining members. The band said in a March press release that “up to two dozen” firefighters remain available and it is “confident that it can address local emergencies, either with existing staff or with its partnership with neighbouring agencies.”
The band said it would review the “possible deficiencies” outlined in the letter, but has declined to provide any updates to iNFOnews.ca on the status of that review and any findings or recommendations that may have come out of it.
iNFOnews.ca has asked the band for the number of current members at the hall and for a response to the concerns raised about last week’s fires, however we have been unable to get answers. Calls to the fire hall and fire chief were not returned by deadline, and the Okanagan Indian Band’s communications officer directed inquiries to the band chief, Byron Louis. We were unable to reach Chief Louis for an interview.
With the smell of smoke still noticeable from Wednesday’s fire, Underhill says she’s decided to do what she can to protect herself, and her community, from fires — she’s signing up.
Okanagan Indian Band Volunteer Fire Department
(CHARLOTTE HELSTON - REPORTER / iNFOnews.ca)
“I’m volunteering at the fire department. They have a course down at the Indian Band Fire Department... The guy was like, ‘you want to volunteer?' It sounded like he was eager to have me,” she says. “Hopefully I can maybe help somebody else faster next time.”
She doesn’t have any training yet but is eager to learn and hopes more residents will volunteer too.
“You can never have too many people trying to put out a fire,” she says. “Volunteering is important. People need to get off their tails and make some time, because it could be your house that needs to be extinguished.”
According to Statistics Canada, just under 5,200 people lived in the Okanagan Indian Band area in 2011. Fire departments on reserves are not subject to the same safety standards as those located off reserves in B.C. Indigenous and Northern Affairs Canada previously told iNFOnews.ca it is working on establishing an Indigenous Fire Marshal’s Office, something advocates believe would bring much needed safety standards to the province’s 60 reserve departments.
To contact a reporter for this story, email Charlotte Helston or call 250-309-5230 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.
We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor in the link above.
News from © iNFOnews, 2018