Person airlifted to hospital after tent fire in downtown Fort St. John

FORT ST. JOHN, B.C. – A person was airlifted to hospital after a tent fire in downtown Fort St. John earlier this week.

Matt Troiano, Deputy Fire Chief of the Fort St. John Fire Department, said firemen responded to the call on June 12th, extinguishing the blaze within twenty minutes.

Troiano confirmed that one person was airlifted out of the city to a hospital, but had no further information on the incident.

The fire came days after Councillor Trevor Bolin requested an update on a bylaw approved last year that would see “soft-sided camping equipment” like tents banned from overnight use in public parks and on commercially zoned property.

The bylaw was introduced last summer after homeless camps appeared outside the Northern Centre of Hope, in Fish Creek Community Forest, and in an abandoned building that was previously a Kal Tire.

“For [residents] that remember this bylaw, it was certainly met with resistance from groups in the lower mainland, as well as from the human rights commission, who advised bylaws against homeless encampments were not legal,” Bolin said in a social media post regarding his request.

“I made it abundantly clear, this is a safety issue in our community to allow tents in public parks and high traffic commercially zoned locations.”

Bolin says he has now requested the bylaw go to a public hearing before being voted on.

In a reply to a resident asking about a fenced-off encampment area for homeless people created in Smithers, Bolin says that idea is “being reviewed.”

Energeticcity.ca contacted the Fort St. John RCMP detachment and the BC Ambulance Service for more information regarding the fire. Neither agency responded in time for publication.