Fire season gets early start with large fires in Pass Creek and near Rossland
By Kyra Hoggan
A brush fire on Upper Gibson Road in Pass Creek this afternoon took about four hours to knock down, according to Pass Creek fire chief Brian Bebelman.
“We got the call at about 3:30 p.m.,” he said, adding it was a big brush fire, roughly an acre in size. “But it was way off the road – we had to hook up about 500 metres of inch-and-a-half line – that’s a lot of line.
“Then forestry brought in a chopper, which helped things immensely,” he said, adding that forestry was still, at the time of the interview, on scene mopping up (this was at roughly 7:30 p.m.).
In all, the fire took eight Pass Creek firefighters and three from Forestry to be extinguished. No structures were threatened.
Bebelman said the fire appears to have been started by a downed power line.
Meanwhile, Kootenay Boundary Regional Fire Rescue is responding to a blaze about two hectares in size, about 25 km up the Rossland Cascade Highway on a steep embankment.
Crews from Trail, Warfield, Montrose and Rossland are on scene, and Forestry is en route with an air tanker, while several more fire crews have been called in.
More information will be posted when it becomes available.
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