Dogs qualify Teams perform well enough at regionals to go to nationals. PAGE 13 Food matters Buying honey produced by local beekeepers worth it. PAGE 25 Chasing first Pirates in Kelowna for series that will determine top spot. PAGE 3
A price to play PAGE 7
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VOL. 24, NO. 21
Fire guts vacant house I
EARLY MORNING blaze destroys home in Westwood area. THE NEWS BULLETIN
An early mor ning fire destroyed an old farmhouse off Westwood Road Friday. Rick Kwasnecha, fire investigator with Nanaimo Fire Rescue, said when crews were called to the scene around 3:30 a.m., the blaze in the twostorey house was already fully involved. The fire destroyed half of the walls and part of the roof of the house, which was vacant for about a month. Neighbour Corey Piket was up attending to his sick baby son when he looked out the window and spotted the blaze. “All of a sudden the house went from nothing to engulfed in flames, an inferno,” he said. “I’ve never seen anything burn that big and so quickly. Talking to 911, I said, ‘If you don’t get here quick, it’s going to be gone.’” Piket estimates the house was rendered to a burned-out shell after about 10 minutes. His family was up watching fire crews battle the blaze over the next couple of hours. The house is located on a gravel drive that branches off from Westwood Road and Piket said if he hadn’t been awake to spot the blaze, flames could easily have spread – there is a stand of trees behind the house and a campground behind those trees.
Crown looking for dangerous offender status
I
BY JENN McGARRIGLE
www.visionsoptical.com
POLICE ISSUED public advisory in 2007 on man convicted of sex assault. BY JENN McGARRIGLE THE NEWS BULLETIN
CHRIS BUSH/THE NEWS BULLETIN
Rick Kwasnecha, fire prevention officer, photographs the charred remains of a home on Westwood Road that was destroyed in a blaze early Friday. Nanaimo Fire Rescue and police investigators are picking through the debris to determine why the fire broke out in the vacant house.
“It was just a fluke that we were up with the baby,” he said. Dave Johnson, who lives about 200 metres away on the gravel road, said he could feel the heat of the fire from his place. He was wakened by the fire trucks rushing to the scene. “You couldn’t see much, just a big, orange ball,” he said. Kwasnecha said the house
was built in the 1920s or 1930s and the old construction, with all-wood interior and no drywall, ensured that once the fire got going, it went up fast. The recent cool, rainy weather probably stopped the fire from doing any further damage. “If it would have been dry, it probably would have expanded,” he said. Kwasnecha hadn’t deter-
mined what started the fire by press time Friday. He said the owner, who didn’t live on site and rented out the house, was checking to see if he had insurance. Although investigators stated it was too early to say Friday morning whether the fire was suspicious, the RCMP’s serious crimes unit was on scene. reporter@nanaimobulletin.com
A man who was the subject of a public advisory five years ago and convicted of sexually assaulting a woman in Nanaimo last summer could be labelled a dangerous offender. Crown counsel intends to ask that a dangerous offender assessment be conducted on Kenneth Wayne Gillespie, 65, who was found guilty in B.C. Supreme Court in Nanaimo May 31 of one count of sexual assault and one count of assault. The dangerous offender provisions of Canada’s Criminal Code are intended to protect the public from the most dangerous, violent and sexual predators in the country. When an individual is designated a dangerous offender, the court can impose either an indeterminate sentence with no chance of parole for seven years, a regular sentence plus a long-term supervision order in the community of up to 10 years after the regular sentence has expired, or a regular sentence of imprisonment for the offence. Police issued a public advisory notice in 2007 when Gillespie moved to Nanaimo. He had just been released after serving a 14-year sentence for a sexual assault committed in Nanaimo while on statutory release for a 1986 sexual assault in Campbell River. ◆ See ‘LATEST’ ‘ /4