A B.C. firefighter is hoping to be reunited with his truck after it was stolen from a parking lot in Merritt on Friday morning.
Connor Callaghan came home from fighting the Christie Mountain wildfire near Penticton last week to find his pickup had been stolen from a BC Wildfire Service base in Merritt.
He says his 2003 navy blue Toyota Tundra with licence plate JY-3181 was spotted in Kamloops on Monday night, noting it was possibly in Mission on Friday afternoon, hours after it was stolen.
“Last night, I got a message on Facebook from someone who said ‘hey, your truck is on my street in Kamloops’, so we called the RCMP,” Callaghan told NL News. “Unfortunately, they didn’t quite get there before he drove off. It seems like the truck might be in the Kamloops area.”
Callaghan says he got back to Merritt around 10 a.m. on Friday morning, when he discovered that his truck was missing. He says its hard to know for sure if the truck was actually taken to Mission.
“They could have maybe stolen the iPad out of it, and the iPad ended up in Mission, but yeah, I got a photo of the guy, but I don’t really want to comment on that,” he added. “It’s just unfortunate that someone would come and steal the vehicle.”
Callaghan says security camera footage showed the vehicle being driven out of the Merritt parking lot around 2:45 a.m. on Friday, August 21. He says there is a canopy on the truck bed, which has a mattress and customized storage cabinets as he lives in the truck during the summer months while fighting wildfires.
Among the valuables in the truck were Callaghan’s laptop, iPad and school bag, which he needs when he returns to school next month. Callaghan was on last firefighting shift of the summer when the truck was stolen.
“Its kind of got a lot of media attention which is unexpected,” Callaghan added. “It was pretty cool to see. I never met the guy who messaged me on facebook, but its awesome to see this many people looking out for my truck. I hope it comes back.”
