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15 YEARS AGO: Fire department turns up heat

Back in time: A snapshot of history
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40 YEARS AGO

Michael Hayes, a 20-year-old inmate of Bear Creek Camp escaped Thursday, May 28.

He was reported at 4:30 p.m. but was recaptured very swiftly by an off-duty guard about 5:30 p.m.

As a result, Hayes was charged with escaping lawful custody and was to appear in Kamloops Court May 29.

35 YEARS AGO

A fire which started Thursday evening is still burning on the hillside near Graffunder trailer court west of Vavenby, but was more or less under control by Saturday.

It is one of three fires in the area that was possibly started by the CNR train.

One fire was near Sedgewick’s and another a little closer to Birch Island. Nine air drops were made by water bombers. Many pieces of equipment were called in and put to work. Ernie Graffunder’s cat made a fire guard. A water skidder and fire truck from CTP were on the scene, as well as both fire trucks from Vavenby fire hall and most of the volunteer crew. Weyerhaeuser had a skidder tanker working at the back end.

The CNR and forestry department had a 20-man crew working Saturday at 6:00 a.m. There will be pumps and mop-up work and two trucks hauling in water.

30 YEARS AGO

Birch Island rancher, Dave Tremblay, had his day in court Monday and had all three charges against him dismissed.

Mr. Tremblay told The Times had he been found guilty he was prepared to go to jail to back his conviction that he had done nothing wrong.

He had been charged with three violations under the Water Act, according to Kamloops conservation officer Warren Chayer.

To a charge of diverting water from a stream without authority, Mr. Tremblay said he had a licence; while the change of diverting more water from a stream than he was lawfully entitled to divert, he claimed was contradictory.

Regarding the third charge, he said the judge stated that, “Mr. Tremblay had no control over the water.” The stream had been swollen by heavy rains. Charges had been laid following an incident on Crossing Creek near Birch Island on or about June 8, 1990.

25 YEARS AGO

If all goes well, the repaving of Highway 5 between Little Fort and Blackpool will begin next Monday and motorists should be prepared for delays and construction speed zone limits.

“We anticipate we’ll start paving about June 10, weather permitting,” confirmed Area Highways Manager Vern Goodwin. “They’ve started crushing aggregate in the Cartwright pit north of Little Fort.”

The Ministry of Transportation and Highways has issues an advisory to motorists stating delays of up to 20 minutes may be expected.

Earlier this year, Highway Patrolman Cst. Paul Brisson of the Clearwater RCMP Detachment acknowledged “there’s going to be a lot of paving and construction around here this summer” and promised “there will be much less leniency in the areas of construction zones, mainly for the protection of construction workers as well as drivers coming through.”

20 YEARS AGO

School District 73 school board adopted a middle course on its budget last week.

The board rejected calls from some trustees to submit a deficit budget, which would have risked Victoria from removing the trustees from office and replacing them with an administrator.

The board also didn’t adopt a deep cuts budget put forward by its own finance committee, a budget that would’ve seen as many as 60 staff lost their jobs.

Instead, the school trustees voted to take about $600,000 out of capital reserve, and so reduce by at least 10 the number of jobs to be cut.

15 YEARS AGO

Clearwater residents might have seen a lot of smoke on Sunday, May 28, and even seen a house on fire. But this was no accident. The Clearwater, Vavenby, Blackpool and Barriere fire departments were all present at a special kind of training session that hasn’t been held in several years.

A condemned house along Clearwater Village road, was donated to the fire department to use in a mock training session for rookie firefighters. Barrels full of burning debris were put into several different rooms, releasing a large amount of smoke that trainees had to navigate through in order to accomplish tasks such as locating a fallen firefighter or finding the source of a fire.

They also practiced breaking through walls, rescues, searches and putting out small fires.

10 YEARS AGO

Clearwater’s Brookfield Mall, which went into receivership last summer, is now being offered for sale.

Signs advertising the mall for sale went up last weekend, according to Larry Good, a realtor with Colliers International.

Asking price for the mall, which includes three acres and 42,000 square feet of space, is $1.475 million.

“It needs someone local who has the money and the vision,” said Good. “It’s not going to be your typical investor. It needs someone on the ground who is willing to do some major renovations and upgrades.”

The realtor said he already received quite a few inquiries from brokers in the Lower Mainland. They were attracted by the relatively low price being asked compared to the amount of square footage and land involved.

5 YEARS AGO

Direct jobs at the proposed Harper Creek copper mine would be sourced locally as much as possible.

That seemed to be the most important message to local residents being delivered during an open house last Wednesday at the North Thompson Resource Centre.

Total attendance was hard to judge as people kept coming and going during the eight-hour long event, but it appeared at least 60 local residents took part.

“We hope to source our workforce from Clearwater and area,” Ian Smith told those present. “We hope a lot of people who live in the Valley choose to work for us.”