A destructive fire struck a campsite at the Long Island Lake Municipal Campground on the holiday Monday, destroying three quads and a boat before being put out.
“We had a little excitement out here over the weekend,” said campground manager Cheryl Gibson.
“Somebody’s campfire got out of control. I don’t know how, but it caught his boat on fire and then the boat got the quads on fire.”
The fire started around 3:30 p.m., she said, and burned until the Jarvie and Fawcett fire departments arrived on scene at about 5 p.m.
Thanks to the location of the site, which is surrounded by two roadways, the fire remained contained. In addition, Gibson said the wind was blowing away from any other sites, which helped to keep the fire from spreading.
However, she said they still evacuated the surrounding sites, just to err on the side of caution.
Also, because the site’s occupants also had a motor home and SUV, the fire could have been even more destructive.
“It would have been much worse if he didn’t get his motor home out of there in the nick of time,” she said.
Gibson said it took another camper to inform her about the fire.
“Somebody came down here and said there’s a fire in site eight,” she said. “So, I grabbed my two fire extinguishers and I got there and the whole boat was consumed.”
The blaze was so bad, she said, that she heard the smoke could be seen in Fawcett.
