Patti Arcand was sitting outside her Kelowna home Tuesday afternoon, enjoying the warm wind and sunshine, when her daughter came running out of their mobile home.
“All of a sudden I heard, “Fire! Fire! Fire!” Arcand said.
Arcand collected her dogs and children and loaded them up in the car to drive to safety as unit 103 in the Kettle View Trailer Park at 5155 Chute Lake Rd. went up in flames.
The man living in the mobile home has been in hospital for six months, according to Arcand, who said no one was inside the home at the time of the blaze.
“The roof was on fire and flames were coming above the roof line… probably 10 feet above the roof line,” Paul Schoettle, who lives down the road, said.
Winds gusting up to 54 km/h pushed a shrub fire into a shed and mobile home around 5:30 p.m. Tuesday, Kelowna Fire Department Platoon Capt. Tim Light said.
“It was pretty wind driven, being on a bit of a knoll here,” Light said. “There’s really not much protection.”
The trailer sustained heavy damage to the attic, he said.
“We’re trying to get all the hot spots we can before this wind comes up again.”
Neighbouring units were not threatened because of the direction of the wind, Light said.
Fire investigators are expected to look into the cause of the blaze, which is believed to have started in the shrubs outside the home.