Kelowna forest cleanup group may have saved a life and a forest last night

The Okanagan Forest Task Force regularly patrols the woods around Kelowna and cleans up tonnes of garbage and abandoned vehicles.

Last night, July 20, they did more than that after getting a call at about 9:15 p.m that a truck was on fire up Postill Lake Road east of the city.

“Well, there was someone in that truck,” it says in a video posted to their Facebook page. “We got him out in time. He was asleep in the cab but he is out now.”

Credit: FACEBOOK/Okanagan Forest Task Force

The fire was beyond the boundaries of any fire department and burned not only the truck but the ground around it and one tree.

“The Ellison Fire Department filled our water tank with the water tender and helped make our refills easy and fast,” the posting on Facebook says. “We were able to put everything out before it spread further into the backcountry.”

At one point in the video, an explosion can be heard and flames shoot out from the burning truck, which was destroyed.

Kane Blake, the Okanagan Forest Task Force spokesman who posted the video, gave credit to Rod Tribiger who was doing patrols in the area and acted quickly to mobilize others to help.

The video is posted here but it’s a private Facebook group.

Credit: FACEBOOK/Okanagan Forest Task Force


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Rob Munro

Rob Munro has a long history in journalism after starting an underground newspaper in Whitehorse called the Yukon Howl in 1980. He spent five years at the 100 Mile Free Press, starting in the darkroom, moving on to sports and news reporting before becoming the advertising manager. He came to Kelowna in 1989 as a reporter for the Kelowna Daily Courier, and spent the 1990s mostly covering city hall. For most of the past 20 years he worked full time for the union representing newspaper workers throughout B.C. He’s returned to his true love of being a reporter with a special focus on civic politics