By Doug Collins

Budget Car Rental fire deemed suspicious

Apr 14, 2017 | 6:18 AM

KAMLOOPS — An early morning fire at Budget Car Rental and Self-Storage on Notre Dame Drive is being deemed suspicious.

In a press release Kamloops Rcmp say the fire is suspicious in nature and investigators with Kamloops Fire Rescue and the RCMP are on scene to determine the cause of the incident.

Kamloops Fire and Rescue’s Rob Chalmers says crews were called to the scene at 3:45 AM on Friday to the building at 820 Notre Dame Drive.

He says a vehicle had apparently been driven into the east side of the office building containing the front service area of the operation and the area where the vehicles are cleaned and maintained. 

Chalmers says it’s believed that crash in some way was involved in starting the fire.

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Crews initially began an aggressive attack on the blaze, but it was too heavily involved, and crews eventually had to fall back and take a defensive posture to ensure the blaze didn’t spread to the adjacent self-storage areas behind the offices.

Chalmers says the building was pretty much destroyed in the blaze. RCMP and Fire investigators are on the scene this morning looking into the fire.

No indication from the company at this point as to what they will do about temporary operations, and whether or not there was any damage to the storage units themselves. 

Chalmers says it’s not believed there was any physical damage to the storage units themselves, but the company will have to determine whether there is any smoke damage from the blaze so close to the storage structure. 

Anyone who was travelling on Notre Dame Drive near the time of the incident that may have witnessed any suspicious activity is asked to contact the Kamloops RCMP at 250-828-3000 or Crimestoppers at 1-800-222-8477.