Busy weekend for Kamloops Fire Rescue with two landscape fires, two structure fires

KAMLOOPS — Kamloops Fire Rescue (KFR) had a busy weekend with a pair of landscape fires along with North Shore and Rayleigh structure fires to contend with on Sunday (May 25).

The most noticeable was the blaze in Kenna Cartwright Park on Saturday afternoon, which grew to a little over a hectare in size.

“Obviously, BC Wildfire came in and gave us a hand,” KFR’s Josh Cowen said. “It was great to have two agencies working together to extinguish the fire rather quickly. It was done within an hour-and-a-half.”

Fire investigators are currently working to determine what caused the fire.

That wasn’t it for landscape fires as KFR crews also battled a smaller blaze along Schubert Drive on Sunday.

“We are in the midst of determining that cause of that right now,” Cowen added. “When the crews showed up it was about 30-by-30, so it was a bigger fire that had the fuels to grow big quick but we were happy that crews got to that fire so quickly.”

With the calendar yet to flip to the month of June, fire crews are already sounding the alarm about dry conditions throughout the valley.

“We have had some rain but the bush is dry already and we are going to get a stretch of hotter-than-usual weather right now,” Cowen said. “It’s definitely on the forecast to have a busier wildfire season, so that is why we are trying to do as much education as we can.”

Kamloops Fire Rescue also extinguished two structure fires on Sunday – one in Rayleigh and one near McArthur Island. The investigation into the fire near McArthur Island is being handled by the Kamloops RCMP.