A grass fire got away on a resident, burning a wood shed and home at Tl’etinqox (Anaham) First Nation last Sunday evening.
“Somebody was burning grass outside their place and the wood shed caught on fire,” Chief Joe Alphonse told the Tribune. “It jumped and it burned the house down.”
There was one woman living in the home, which Alphonse said was about 40 years old, however, because the house was used by family members that travelled back and forth from Williams Lake it means a family has been displaced from the community.
“It’s disappointing with everything we went through last summer and how hard we fought to save our homes from wildfires to have one of our community members burn their house down from a grass fire,” Alphonse said. “It just happened at an unfortunate time when most of our community members were not in the community.”
Grass burning has been an issue in the past at Tl’etinqox, Alphonse said.
“We’ve never lost any buildings before because of it, but now that we have, it will be a good opportunity for the community to address that kind of behaviour. I’ve been wanting to try and curb it in some way.”
The fire occurred the day before a Category three fire ban went into effect for the region.
As of noon Monday, April 23, category three fires were banned in Cariboo Fire Centre in co-operation with the Tsilhqot’in National Government. Areas covered by the ban include the Cariboo-Chilcotin, 100 Mile House, Quesnel and the Tsilhqot’in (Xeni Gwet’in) Declared Title Lands.
Banned are any fires larger than two metres high by three metres wide, three or more concurrently burning piles no larger than two metres high by three metres wide, one or more burning windrows and burning of stubble or grass over an area greater than 0.2 hectares.
The category three fire ban will remain in effect until Sept. 19, 2018.
Read More: Cariboo Fire Centre urges caution with open burning
Read More: Car fire sparks grass fire at 146 Mile near Williams Lake
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