Fire fighters respond to call down by the Quesnel River

The Quesnel Volunteer Fire Department was called out to a wild land fire this (Friday) afternoon.

Duty Officer Bart Schneider says they got the call just before 2-30 to an area just up from the Quesnel River Bridge between the river and the train tracks.

“When I arrived on scene I could hear what sounded like wood crackling with not a lot of smoke, so I figured it was quite a hot fire in some established wood. When I was able to get confirmation from our dispatch that CN had shut down the tracks and I was able to get access to it, I found that is was a campfire with wood in quite a large campfire ring that had been built along the river bank.”

Schenider says there was definitely the potential for the fire to spread.

“Definitely. It was in a rock ring, it was on the river bank, but there were trees overhanging and it wasn’t very far from a grassy area so there was definitely a chance of some fire spread at that point.”

He says they were on site for about an hour.

“By the time we got on site, stretched our hose lines into it, dispersed the fire ring and cooled everything down around it and cleaned up, we were on scene for about an hour.”

Schneider says they responded with three pieces of apparatus, including one that hadn’t yet been used.

“Two of our tender trucks and our new skid unit, a small tank and pump that we have in back, the back of our squad unit, so that was the first response for that unit and it worked well for us.”