Naramata firefighters are thanking the community for quickly spotting a bush fire that they were then able to attack before it got out of control.
“Thanks to all the people who are vigilante and looking at the hillsides,” said Naramata fire chief Tony Trovao. “Because of that, we were able to get enough of a jump on it. We have a great group of people from Naramata to Summerland that spot these things anywhere from the hillsides to issues on the lake. It is unbelievable.”
The Naramata volunteer fire department was called to the area of Workman Place around 8 p.m. on Monday where a fire had started about 400 metres from the street, near walking and bike trails.
“It was going up, about a rank two or three fire and was starting to get into the trees. Luckily we got it before it did that. We immediately started to cut a guard to prevent it from spreading to the root system in the neighbouring trees. It would have been a 800 to 1,000 foot hose lay so once we got water out there it helped us get it under control.”
Naramata fire had 23 of their firefighters working on it in conjunction with four from the Ministry of Forests.
“Flames were about three feet high, but from a distance we even thought it was going to be a lot worse than it was when we arrived,” said Trovao, who added there were no lightning strikes in the area which leads him to believe it was human-caused, but nothing official has been confirmed.