One person in custody after blaze sparks in Kalamalka Lake Provincial Park

COLDSTREAM – A 24-year-old man is in custody in relation to a fire in Kalamalka Lake Provincial Park Friday evening.

Police say they were called just before 9:30 p.m. about a blaze in the park. They say the flames were reported to be towering up to 20 feet high.

A Vancouver firefighter who has a cabin in Cosens Bay says he noticed the fire on the foreshore of the lake around 8:30 p.m. Bob Hollier says his wife called authorities and he sprung into action. After assessing the situation in his boat, he came back to grab his firefighting equipment – a portable pump and hoses. Hollier says he fought the blaze along with his son and a neighbour.

“It was starting to climb up the rock face and alongside the shoreline and the wind was blowing quite hard. It was a perfect setting for it to get out of control and what was sitting above all that is all the grassland and quite a treed area. We like to put it down as a good save,” says Hollier, an acting battalion chief with Vancouver Fire and Rescue Services. “Thankfully we had eyes on it and we were able to get there with our own personal firefighting equipment.”

The Coldstream Fire Department and wildfire fighters also responded. Police say the man in custody was originally detained by fire officials.

“He was on scene at the fire when we arrived,” says Hollier.

RCMP said it was too early in their investigation to discuss whether this fire was connected to the string of suspicious fires that have plagued the North Okanagan.

“We are still vary much in the preliminary stages here. We need to find the circumstances of this before we look any further,” says Vernon/North Okanagan RCMP spokesperson Gord Molendyk.