By Don Urquhart, Times Chronicle

The Osoyoos Fire Rescue (OFR) was called out to a fourth story structure fire on Sunday, Feb. 25 at around 4 p.m. at the Desert Surfside Waterfront Accommodations located at 7310 Main St. in Osoyoos.

OFR Fire Chief Corey Kortmeyer said that upon arrival at the scene it was determined the fire was on one of the fourth floor balconies.

“Someone was using a cooking appliance and for some reason, the cooking appliance did not ignite. Unbeknownst to the person operating the cooking appliance, the fuel supply continued to flow and then subsequently ignited causing injuries to the occupant of the unit and also resulted in a subsequent exterior fire,” Kortmeyer explained.

At that point some of the residents tried to get the fire under control but it had already left the point of origin and spread to the structure,” he said. Once on the scene the OFR firefighters quickly got the fire under control but “unfortunately, there were a couple of occupants in the affected unit and surrounding units that had to leave their their living areas.”

Emergency support services was called in to assist those residents that were impacted with Kortmeyer saying remediation of the fire, smoke and water damage to those units would need to take place before the residents returned. 

Kortmeyer noted that some building management and stratas forbid the use of cooking appliances including barbecue grills on balconies but he could not comment on this particular case as it is still under investigation he said.

With the on again off again bouts of warm weather being experienced in the South Okanagan it might be tempting to dust off the barbecue. The fire chief advises that “if you don’t know how to use the device properly you can always refer to the owner’s manual.”

He added that if the barbecue or cooking appliance fails to ignite its preferable to troubleshoot it rather than adding more fuel into the situation. 

“It’s one of those things that can be explosive in nature,” he said adding that people tend to underestimate how quickly gas explosions can occur. “When in doubt look it up and if you can’t then at least give it some time before you try to reignite it.”

He also noted that the OFR received the call at 16:19 and was on scene at 16:24, a response time of just five minutes, well below the target of 10 minutes set by the National Fire Protection Association (NFPA).