Fire guts Osoyoos meat shop/fruit stand; cause undetermined

A meat shop/fruit stand in Osoyoos was gutted by fire Sunday that was first reported at about 8:30 p.m.

The fire chief was the first firefighter on scene at the Highway 97 business when just smoke was seen coming from the building.

“By the time we got the hoses out, it came through the northwest side of the building,” says Ryan McCaskill. There wasn’t much we could do, just surround and drown.”

The burn patterns indicate the fire started in a basement level storage room.

“It got up into the second floor, the shop floor, and up into the attic. It went all the way from the north end of the building to the south,” says McCaskill.

There are three, unoccupied residential suites at the back of the building. They were damaged in the blaze but the fire chief believes they are reparable.

McCaskill says the cause of the fire is unknown.

“We went out to investigate today (Monday) but it’s very unsafe, the building is unsafe, and we didn’t want to go in. We’ll wait for the insurance investigators to go in and pull it all out and do it safely.”

McCaskill says there’s nothing at this time to indicate the fire is suspicious.