Efforts to get fire service in Monte Creek, the area of Tuesday night’s deadly blaze, go back to at least 1984, when the previous owners of the very same Hook Road property had an application to establish a fire station denied by the Agricultural Land Commission.
According to documents from the Agricultural Land Commission, Bar HH Cattle Co. had applied in September of 1984 to subdivide 0.2 hectares, or just under half an acre, to use for a community firehall. The ALC refused, saying that doing so would take away agricultural land with good potential. The landowner asked the ALC to reconsider that decision, but it was refused again in November of the same year.
Ron Storie, director of community services with the Thompson-Nicola Regional District, says the proposal did not formally come up to build a firehall in Monte Creek after 1984. Not until early 2020, when board members voted to approve spending on a feasibility study for planning to build a new firehall.
TNRD director, and board chair, Ken Gillis says district staff have picked up the file, and have been starting to see progress.
“They’ve really got it going. They’re in the process of doing the initial survey in trying to determine if there is enough support for it. And if indeed there is, it would go to a formal approval process, so that’s where we are at this point.”
Gillis says because of the relatively few residents within the catchment area, the cost had previously been prohibitive.
But he says – by making a new fire hall a satellite of the existing Pritchard volunteer fire department – costs would be dramatically lower. He adds residents would also see major savings on their fire insurance costs.
“If we do manage to establish a new fire hall in that area, that’s going to be a tremendous benefit for people and that would include Del Oro,” Gillis adds. “There’s a substantial subdivision there and they must be choking on their fire insurance premiums too.”
Ironically, the homeowners who lost their home on Tuesday had also formally offered to donate part of their acreage to build the firehall on – in essentially the same spot proposed in 1984.
The piece of land is a mere 250 yards from the house that burned to it’s foundation, killing one person Tuesday night. The cause of the fire has not been announced, nor has the identity of the person killed.
(Photo: Twitter @mmartin681)
– with files from Colton Davies
