Image Credit: Rob Kovac

By Amandalina Letterio

KAMLOOPS FIRE RESCUE

Kamloops Fire Rescue investigating three recent vacant building fires as suspicious

Feb 7, 2022 | 4:28 PM

KAMLOOPS — Kamloops fire crews have put out three fires at three different vacant buildings within a week. Two of those fires took place over this weekend.

Kamloops Fire Rescue (KFR) Fire Chief Steve Robinson says these fires are avoidable and pull crews away from other potential emergencies.

“It draws us away from providing — if somebody has a heart attack and our resources are tied up putting out an abandoned and vacant house fire, it poses a challenge for us,” Robinson says.

One of Friday’s (Feb. 4) fires was at the former Red Sea Auto Sales building on the North Shore. The property is owned by ARPA investments.

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One of the company’s partner’s, Joshua Knaak, told CFJC News that the building is weeks away from demolition. He says the company is just waiting on a permit from the city.

Chief Robinson says the onus is on the building owners to keep trespassers out.

“It is 100 per cent the responsibility of the owner to keep that building properly, if it’s vacant, to keep it secured,” he says. “And there’s various bylaws out there that we can leverage to help the owner understand the challenges that these buildings present.”

The other fire ignited early Saturday morning (Feb. 5), downtown at a house on the 400-block of Nicola Street.

This property is owned by Kelson Group, a management and development company. Kelson Group says the property is coming down within the next few weeks, and until then, security will increase.

“We have gone up to full boarding up of houses now of every opening, window, door… that we can find. As well, we are going to be defining the sites with security fences as you can see right now, we’ve already got this up,” Kelly Fawcett, vice-president at Kelson Group says.

Fawcett says he’s even hired evening security. It’s their second property that has been destroyed by fire within a week.

On Jan. 28, a home on Fifth Avenue between Nicola Street and Battle Street went up in flames. It has been torn down.

Chief Robinson says the city is working with owners all over Kamloops to secure vacant buildings.

“If it does become an issue, we will look at other ways that maybe, as to your point, about the cost — we’ll look at cost recovery to the building owner for not keeping the property secure. So we will start looking at those avenues to try and reduce this problem,” he says.

All three fires are considered suspicious.