The Borg family members on Valleyview Drive in the Imperial Ranchettes lost their home in a devastating fire on Feb. 11.
100 Mile House Fire-Rescue chief Darrell Blades says the call came in at 8:51 a.m., reporting the structure fire was already fully involved.
His firefighters were on scene 10 minutes later (a quick response due to several members gathered at the hall) and confirmed the blaze had engulfed the house, he explains.
A dozen local members were joined by others from Lone Butte (eight) and 108 Mile Ranch (four) volunteer fire departments who responded for mutual aid.
Blades says he made the requests as soon as he got the call with the fire severity report. Two Forest Grove Volunteer Fire Department members also provided mutual aid later in the day.
"The structure was heavily involved on at least two floors. It was a fairly large house, three storeys ... so it was defensive right from the start; there was no opportunity to go in and make an aggressive interior attack.
"There is no hydrant protection in that area, so we had to shuttle all our water [with] five tenders to haul water to the scene. That operation went very well, the departments worked quite well together."
Because of the time of year and snow conditions, Blades says firefighters were not concerned about the fire spreading to neighbouring properties, so they focused more effort on saving the home itself.
"We hit it with everything we had from the beginning. We got close to knocking it down but water was an [initial] issue. Then around 9:20 a.m., the roof came down – so it was a fast, hot fire."
He notes they did not haul water from the lake due to questionable ice conditions, unknown accessibility through the snow to the creek, manpower usage and set up time.
"Each of our engines have water on board so we used that first ... until we got the tenders set up, then we started drafting out of the [belly] tank.
Later in the afternoon when we were just dealing with the hot spots, we took the bladder down and we just pumped from the tenders into our engines."
This was done to clear the road for local traffic to get through to the neighbouring homes, Blades explains.
The fire chief says other difficulties were encountered with the icy, slippery conditions around the house leaving "a lot of potential" for falls.
It was especially tough for his department because the burning home was owned by Veronica Borg who is one of their own volunteer members, he explains.
Blades says the cause of the fire is still under investigation, but may never be determined. However, it is not considered suspicious and the homeowner indicated no wood heat was going at the time, he adds.
Blades notes he was pleased with the good team effort that came together under the conditions that the firefighters faced, and that no injuries were incurred.