A video of what a witness said was a close call between a boat and a water bomber on Shawnigan Lake has generated a lot of conversation.
BC Wildfire Service crews fighting the Old Man Lake fire east of Sooke River on Vancouver Island were skimming water from Shawnigan Lake.
Richelle Hill was on the lake watching the planes when she said she saw what appeared to be a close call when a boat on the lake appeared to cut in front of an aircraft.
Hill filmed the incident.
“It was really surprising,” she said.
“Everyone was out on the water and a lot of people were being respectful, like a lot of people were staying out of the middle. They were boating around the sides. There was paddleboarders, you know, everyone kept safe.”
But Hill said it appeared one boater did not get the message.
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“It looked like they were getting out of the way, but then they just like turned around and cut them off,” Hill said.
“They were really close. Like way too close than you should ever be. They got in the way of the firefighters. You just can’t do that.”
Hill said if there had been a collision then not only would people get hurt but the firefighting plane would have been damaged.
“That’s a vital firefighting tool that we need on the island,” she said.
“I was really astonished to see that.”
The Old Man Lake fire is 169 hectares and is suspected to be human-caused.
Keith Shields, chief of the Shawigan Lake Fire Department, told Global News that he and his crews were out on the lake, making sure the area was cleared for the planes and he said there wasn’t a close call.
“People have been great, actually, at moving out of there,” he said.
Legally, Shields said people should dock their boats if they know a body of water is going to be used for wildfire planes.
“They’re doing about a 10- to 12-minute cycle so they’re coming in fairly quick and they come in quick once they start coming,” he added about the plane’s schedule.
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