A wind machine at an Osoyoos vineyard by 6th Avenue and 41st Street caught fire from overheating early Wednesday morning.
The Osoyoos Fire Department received the call at 3:43 a.m.
“When we arrived on scene the wind machine was fully engulfed, the border at the base was fully involved, and it was lapping on to a propane tank that was a few feet away,” said Ryan McCaskill, deputy chief of the Osoyoos Fire Department.
The property representative told the fire department that the overheating alarm for the wind machine went off. Normally this alarm would’ve shut the fan off immediately.
McCaskill said when the firefighting team of 12 got to the scene, the fire was so big that they could not get too close to it until it died down a little.
“There was nothing really in danger around the area, but we didn’t want to put ourselves in danger,” McCaskill said.
When the blaze finally started to subside, the firefighters got portable monitors on the fire to manage it from a distance.
“We were able to cool the tank from a distance, then were able to use our thermal imaging camera and make sure that the tank was cool enough for us to proceed to get close,” said McCaskill.
Other than the wind machine and the propane tank, there was no other damage to property. And no injuries.
The firefighters were on scene until 7 a.m.
