RCMP investigating suspicious Vernon fires that led residents to evacuate homes

Three separate fires in Vernon on Friday night caused several people to evacuate their homes, and all the blazes are believed to be suspicious.

BX Swan Lake Fire Rescue was called around 9:20 p.m. to a report of a fire at the entrance of the BX trail on Star Road.

Fire chief Bill Wacey said soon after another call came in, reporting a second fire about 100 yards up the trail.

“It wasn’t until we arrived that we knew we had three fires,” Wacey said.

“It was big enough and serious enough that I got mutual aid in from Vernon Fire Rescue so I had one of their crews working alongside.”

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Wacey said the fires were showing rank two or three behaviour and residents of a few nearby homes decided to evacuate because of how quickly the flames were spreading.

“I was surprised that it was already climbing up into the Crown on some of these,” he said.

“With the torrential rains that we had Tuesday night, I would never have expected it to have turned around that fast or make its way up the slope the way it did.”

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No one was injured and there was no damage to any structures, but had the fires sparked a little earlier, things could have been much worse.

“We had a lot of wind earlier but it had dropped off about a half an hour before so we dodged a bullet,” Wacey said.

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "We had a lot of wind earlier but it had dropped off about a half an hour before so we dodged a bullet," Wacey said.

Wacey said the trail entrance will be closed until an engineer can do a slope stabilization analysis to determine if it’s safe for the public.

“A lot of stuff got washed down plus a lot of rocks and stumps and things that were rolling down onto the path so we have blocked it off.”

He said it took about two hours for crews to put the fires out and some fire fighters were stationed at the scene overnight as well.

While the fires are believed to have been intentionally set, Wacey is encouraging the public to keep an eye on anything suspicious and also to be cautious themselves.

“We do live in the Okanagan Valley and regardless of the way our spring has been is that it’s torrential rains Tuesday and I had a rank two and three fire on Friday, that’s just how fast things change or how quickly it dries out.”

Tweet This Click to share quote on Twitter: "We do live in the Okanagan Valley and regardless of the way our spring has been is that it's torrential rains Tuesday and I had a rank two and three fire on Friday, that's just how fast things change or how quickly it dries out."

Anyone with any information is asked to contact Vernon RCMP.