It was like a war zone!
After the fire, I volunteered to drive truck to go out to help clean up for the residents on Branchflower Road. It looked like a bomb went off, like Hiroshima. Everything was grey dust. There would be a foundation. The frame of a bike, everything that was able to be burned was. Just shells. Baby buggies, bicycles, cars. Like a war zone. Almost like a nuclear bomb.
If a foundation was left, there was nothing else, just a chimney. We cleaned it up. In the middle of it, at the end of the road was a house. The vinyl siding was a little warped. It didn’t burn. It was a little weird.
This was a freak of nature, normally fire goes uphill, but this downdraft burned down.
Rick Webb, Captain
Firehall #1, Salmon Arm Fire Department
Photo credit:
James Murray, Salmon Arm Observer, c. 1998