Tuesday, May 14, 2019 | Your community newspaper since 1916
CITIZEN PHOTO BY JAMES DOYLE
Smoke from the Fraser Lake wildfire settles in downtown Prince George on Saturday evening. Winds pushed smoke from the wildfire into the city on Saturday.
Crews containing early-season wildfire near Fraser Lake Amy SMART Vancouver Sun Fraser Lake Mayor Sarrah Storey was driving back from a soccer tournament out of town when she saw the skyline transformed by a wildfire creeping up a mountain on the edge of her central British Columbia community. The blaze grew from four hectares Saturday morning to 260 hectares that night, prompting a local state of emergency and several evacuations for an area about 140 kilometres west of Prince George. “We drove into pretty much a
big huge, smoky billowing cloud and you could see the flames,” Storey said in a phone interview Sunday. By Saturday afternoon, the fire was producing plumes of smoke that drifted towards Prince George and was visible through satellite imagery. The smoke formed a cloud in the northern horizon and cast a haze over the city and the smell of burning trees permeated the evening air. But progress was quickly made as crews and equipment were deployed. As of early afternoon Monday, the fire was 100 per cent
contained and 50 per cent guarded and reduced to 236 hectares. Thirty firefighters backed by one helicopter and 15 pieces of equipment were on the scene. The weather is expected to work in firefighters’ favour, according to B.C. Wildfire Service information officer Molly Blower, with humidity to rise and the temperature to fall, and some possibility of rain on Tuesday. “It’s looking pretty good,” she said. The Regional District of BulkleyNechako issued a state of emergency Saturday night and ordered
people to leave an area near the community of Lejac, about five kilometres east of Fraser Lake. District chairman Gerry Thiessen said the evacuation area affected only about half a dozen permanent homes, while an evacuation alert means about 40 others nearby have to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice. But both the evacuation order and alert were rescinded Sunday night. The cause of the Lejac fire remains under investigation, but Thiessen said that with no recent lightning in the area it appears to have been human-caused.
Rising house prices reducing affordability
Police seek driver in fatal hit-and-run Ted CLARKE Citizen staff tclarke@pgcitizen.ca Prince George RCMP have located the vehicle they believe was involved in a fatal hit-and-run collision Saturday night, which killed a man in a wheelchair and left another man with serious injuries. An RCMP officer on patrol just after midnight Saturday found two adult males in an adjacent parking lot suffering from their injuries next to a severely damaged electric-powered wheelchair and bicycle on the east side Victoria Street between 15th and 17th Avenues. The two men were transported to hospital where the 48-year-old man who was in the wheelchair later died of his injuries. A 56-year-old man who was on the bike, is expected to survive his injuries. After closing the road on both sides, police determined the northbound vehicle struck the two victims and the driver
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did not stop. The vehicle was described as a dark-coloured 2012 or 2012 Jeep Grand Cherokee SUV. It had extensive damage from the impact of the collision on the passenger side. Within a few hours of asking for help from the public to locate the vehicle involved in the collision, police were provided information that led them to locate and seize a vehicle. A forensic and mechanical examination will be conducted on the vehicle to help identify and locate the driver. “We still have to prove who was behind the wheel,” said Prince George RCMP spokesperson Craig Douglass. “We may know who owns the vehicle, but being the owner doesn’t mean you were the one driving it so we have to do some other things like that and garner the evidence before we submit a report.” It was not revealed where the two victims were when they were hit. “They may have been on the side-
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walk,” said Douglass. “That’s part of the investigation so we can’t say for sure. We’re not ruling out they were on the road and not ruling out they were on the sidewalk.” Douglass said the vehicle was found in the city but would not reveal where because that could put the owner at risk of harm from someone who knows the victims. “We just have to be careful and I want to talk to the investigators about that first before we do that,” said Douglass. “If that will garner more information then maybe we’ll do that.” Police are asking anybody who witnessed the incident or has any information to help identify the driver to call them at 250-561-3300 or call Crime Stoppers 1-800-222-8477. You do not have to reveal your identity. If information you provide leads to an arrest you could receive a cash reward. Douglass is urging the driver to do the right thing and surrender to police.
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See page 2 for more details and short-term forecasts
Thiessen said he first received a call at around 4 p.m. when the fire had scorched about four hectares, and it grew to 65 times that size by the evening. “We had pretty significant winds yesterday and that was a big concern,” Thiessen said in a phone interview Sunday. B.C. Hydro reported failure of transmission equipment due to the fire, which left 20,000 customers without power until Saturday evening. The areas affected included Fraser Lake, Prince Rupert, Houston, Terrace and Smithers. — see, ‘WE’RE NOT, page 3
Mark NIELSEN Citizen staff mnielsen@pgcitizen.ca The cost of owning a home in Prince George in 2018 was slightly above the Canada Mortgage and Housing Corporation’s suggested threshold, according to a report from the B.C. Northern Real Estate Board. The costs of mortgage payments, municipal taxes and fees, and utilities for the average single-family home stood at 30.9 per cent of before-tax median household income. According to the CMHC, housing is considered affordable if it costs less than 30 per cent. A typical single-family home sold for $350,713 in 2018, a $31,546 increase over the year before according to numbers derived from the Multiple Listing Service for the city. “Historically, the largest cost contributor to annual changes in affordability has been house prices, and this trend continues for 2018,” economist Leslie Lax said in the report. — see COST OF OWNERSHIP, page 3
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