KAMLOOPS THIS WEEK TUESDAY
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APRIL 7, 2015 | Volume 28 No. 42
WEATHER Sunny High 16 C Low 1 C
We tabulate ballots on notable issues
A6
YES NO
‘DISGUSTING’ JUGS LINING THE HIGHWAY Truckers and their urine-filled containers
A3
TIM PETRUK/KTW
SUN PEAKS SNOW REPORT Mid-mountain: 141 cm Alpine: 183 cm Snow phone: 250-578-7232
HOW HAS COUNCIL VOTED?
‘HEART’ OF MCLURE TORCHED TIM PETRUK STAFF REPORTER tim@kamloopsthisweek.com
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The McLure Restaurant, long a gathering place for the small community north of Kamloops, was destroyed by fire on the weekend, leaving residents without their only eatery. JESSICA REITER PHOTO
artin Jones awoke to sirens on Saturday night as firefighters rushed to the McLure Restaurant. When he spotted the flames at the diner two doors down from his house, he had one thought — not again. “It was just, ‘Get the hose out,’” he told KTW. “I was with the hose at the back of my property. I don’t want that to happen again.” Jones was referring to the McLure fire of 2003, one of the most damaging in B.C. history. It started on a slope 40 yards from his property, a couple of hundred feet from the restau-
rant that burned to the ground — along with an adjacent unoccupied house and a series of outbuildings — over the weekend. Noel Johnson, chief of the McLure Volunteer Fire Department, made sure he had manpower — backup firefighters sent from Barriere — behind the restaurant as the flames raged. “The 2003 fire started just up the hill from behind the cafe,” he said. “That’s why I had Barriere back there.”
DIFFICULT ATTACK
Johnson and his crew of volunteer firefighters arrived back at the hall at about 9:30 p.m. on Saturday when the alarm was sounded. “We just returned from a call to
a grassfire,” he said. “We got paged back out to the cafe on fire.” Johnson said his crews arrived at the restaurant just before 9:45 p.m. “Initially, there were flames coming from the right rear corner of the building — visible flame, lots of smoke,” he said. “Attack was difficult because of overhead power lines that were sparking and dropping.” A crew of firefighters headed to the back of the restaurant to protect a large white propane tank. “We called in Barriere for backup for a water tender and they sent that down and an attack crew,” Johnson said. See CAUSE, A7
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