A large contingent of firefighters and regional resources responded to a fire at the PRT nursery in Harrop on Thursday, located along the west arm of Kootenay Lake, emitting large plumes of black smoke over the area.
The Regional District of Central Kootenay (RDCK) issued an Evacuation Alert – Shelter in Place for those in the vicinity of Harrop, Proctor and Balfour due to the risk of potentially toxic smoke from the fire. That Shelter in Place Advisory has since been lifted, as residents were asked to close their windows and doors and to stay indoors while firefighters fought the structure fire.
“In total, we had 40 firefighters on scene,” Nora Hannon told MyNelsonNow.com, RDCK Regional Fire Chief. “The fire originated in the east corner of the nursery where there was a lot of fuel located, including a large volume of styrofoam. That caused some fire spread onto the neighbouring property and into the interface.”
The Balfour/Harrop Fire Department was originally paged to the fire at 1:50 pm on Thursday, while automatic aid was given by North Shore Fire Department. Hannon said additional support was then called in from Kaslo, Beasley, and Crescent Valley in order to control the flames.
“Firefighters did a tremendous job to contain the fire from spreading throughout the nursery property and also were able to save the neighbouring house which was being infringed by fire,” said Hannon. “They were supported by the BC Wildfire Service with two initial attack crews, two medium-size helicopters, as well as a Birddog officer.”
While the Shelter in Place Advisory was active, the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure closed Highway 3A around 3:45 pm, as well as Harrop Proctor Road. By 6:15 pm, Harrop Proctor Road was back to single lane alternating and eventually reopened by 6:15 am on Friday.
“We didn’t want residents driving through that smoke and also we had fire activity and, for a period, downed hydro lines on that stretch of road so later in the evening we were able to go back to single lane alternating traffic and let residents through,” Hannon told MyNelsonNow.com.
At this time, the cause of the fire remains under investigation, as crews stayed on scene late Thursday evening and will remain on scene to do additional mop up on Friday.
“Fire crews did a tremendous job and the support of the other agencies on scene, RCMP, BC Ambulance, Nelson Hydro, MOTI, was also very important to the success of the incident.”
There were no reported injuries in the fire.
