By Steve Hubrecht
[email protected]
Radium Hot Springs council members expressed their gratitude, during the most recent council meeting, to the village’s fire department for its efforts in extinguishing a large blaze that raged on Christmas Eve.
The village’s new fire Chief, Trevor Carr, was present at the Wednesday, Jan. 12 council meeting to give a general update on the Radium fire department, and council members were full of praise for Carr and his crew with regards to the fire. The fire involved four side-by-side townhouses at Radium Resort. The Radium fire department was notified of the blaze at 3:19 p.m., and sent a crew of 12 local firefighters, two fire fighting vehicles, and an all-terrain vehicle. The Invermere Fire Department also sent fire fighters to support the Radium crew.
The fire had completely engulfed all four units of the townhouse, Carr explained to the Pioneer. Given the sheer size of the blaze, with no way of being able to salvage any of the structures, and with another set of nearby townhouses at risk if the fire were to spread, as well as the firefighters’ own safety to consider, the Radium fire department opted to use a backhoe to pull down the parts of the burning townhouses that were still standing, brining the fire down to ground level.
“By the standards of fires we see in Radium, this was a big fire,” Carr told the Pioneer. “Often we see garage fires, chimney fires, maybe a fire involving a single family residence. This was a four-unit, three-storey townhouse, with big flames, maybe 20 feet in the air.”
The majority of the fire was extinguished by about 10 p.m., but a smaller crew stayed on site through the night, monitoring the area to make sure there were no flare ups. Carr extended a big thank you to the Invermere Fire Department for its assistance, and to the Horsethief Pub and Eatery and Wildside Pizzeria for providing the firefighters food during the emergency (and to Fire’D Up Breakfast and Burgers for doing so many times in the past).
