A moving van that couldn’t cope with the Rossland hill burned in the Gulch in Trail on Sunday.
Kootenay Boundary Regional Fire and Rescue Chief Dan Derby said they were called about 10:45 p.m. to about a block from the fire hall.
Derby said the van’s brakes caught fire coming down the hill and the flames spread to the contents in the back. The contents suffered a mix of fire and water damage.
The scene had not been cleaned up by the next morning. Derby says it took some time to remove the van because of the amount of damage it suffered to the drivetrain, requiring repairs before it could be towed away. The van belonged to a commercial hauler.
Derby said such incidents are not uncommon.
“It could be a combination of things: vehicles that are overweight, drivers not familiar with the hill, wrong gears,” he said.
“It’s a sad outcome from the perspective of those people losing their contents, but nobody else was put at risk. There have definitely been more serious incidents on the hill as a result of the grade. It really needs the respect of drivers to manage their equipment and make sure it’s safe.”
