West Kelowna homeowner taking loss of house in stride

A West Kelowna couple is having to start from scratch after losing most of their belongings, including their vehicle, as a result of a house fire Wednesday afternoon.

The fire broke out at around 5 o’clock in a two storey home on Madera court — off Sonoma Pines.

It was a tough fire to fight because, like a majority of homes in this neighbourhood, it had vaulted ceilings.

“Once the fire gets into a void space in the roof, you can be four or five feet away from it but you can’t actually get water on that hot spot because there because there’s a 45 degree or 90 degree bend and it’s hard to get the water around the corner,” assistant fire chief, Darren Lee said.

Lisa Issler rents downstairs with her husband Rolf. They found out about the fire through a text from a friend.

“Something along the lines of: Is that your house that is on fire?,” Issler said.

The Isslers escaped relatively unharmed but the same can’t be said for home owner Wayne Pyett.

“It’s reality. It’s what happens to people in tragedy. You pick up the pieces and move forward. You’ve got to be bigger than the event,” Pyett said.

Officials say the fire appears to have started in the garage and one possible cause could be rags.

They say the owner had just finished staining a pergola and put the rags in the garage.

“Did they use a linseed oil which can cause spontaneous combustion? It’s certainly one of the avenues that they’re going to go down today to try and figure if that was the ignition source,” Lee said.