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▼ RUSTY ENSIGN
Lack of fire protection proves costly Kathy Michaels STAFF REPORTER
Rusty Ensign has been lobbying for a rural fire department near his Peachland home for years, and Thursday his will to get one built was galvanized by personal tragedy. “My daughter got off the bus at 3:45 p.m. and there was smoke coming out the windows of our house,” he said. The 13-year-old assessed the situation and quickly moved to save the family pets. “She kept her composure and saved Stitch, her papillon, by opening a window and letting the little dog out, then she went down to the other side of the house and got out our four German shepherd puppies,” he said. “By that time the roof was starting to crackle, and she called 911.” She wasn’t able to contact Ensign and his wife right away, but she did reach her uncle who quickly went to her side. “When I got out of my business meeting, I had a text from my brother saying, ‘The house is on fire,’” he said. “By the time I got there, at 5:15 p.m., it was already down to embers.” Standing around the perimeter of their burning home were his daughter, brother, neighbours and representatives from the RCMP and Peachland Fire Department. The home, which is on Trepanier Road just past Paradise Valley Drive, falls outside the fire protection area, which means there was literally nothing to be done by fire officials than stand outside the perimeter and watch nine years of memories burn to the ground. “I knew that was the way it was when I moved there,” said Ensign, of the fire protection boundaries. “We pay a high insurance rate because of that, but the community has attempted to get fire protection. The system is flawed and we need political will to change it.” Several neighbours in the area, he said, have attempted to put something together, but those efforts See Costly A8
WADE PATERSON/CAPITAL NEWS
MEAT DELIVERY…Kelowna-Lake Country MLA Norm Letnick (left) and Kelowna-Mission MLA Steve Thomson (second
from left) help representatives of Guide Outfitters Association of British Columbia on Saturday bring in 500 pounds of moose meat for the Salvation Army Community Life Centre. See story on A2.
▼ LABOUR DISPUTE
FortisBC, union agree to binding arbitration Alistair Waters ASSISTANT EDITOR
After nearly six months off the job and with Christmas looming, more than 200 locked-out FortisBC employees have received what they wanted most of all—news they are going back to work. Their union, the Inter-
national Brotherhood of Electrical Workers local 213, and the company announced Monday they had reached an agreement to take the outstanding issues in their ongoing and acrimonious labour dispute to binding arbitration. The workers will start going back as early as to-
day (Tuesday) and will all be back on the job by Friday, said representatives of both the union and the company. The binding arbitration will then take place and IBEW local 213 assistant business manager Rod Russell said he expects both sides will want to expedite the pro-
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cess. “We are relieved its over,” said Russell. “We are disappointed we could not get there on our own, but we’re relieved nonetheless.” He said that was also the sentiment he was hearing from the locked out workers walking picket lines outside Fortis facili-
ties in Kelowna. FortisBC comunications director Joyce Wagenaar, speaking for the company, said Fortis was pleased the union’s leadership accepted the company’s invitation to go to binding arbitration.
See Arbitration A9
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