A family vacation at a mountain cabin ended in near tragedy on Wednesday, August 13, after a propane explosion destroyed a cabin.
Cpl. Ayers of the Columbia Valley RCMP Detachment says members from both his detachment and the Kimberley Detachment attended the scene at Whitetail Lake, at kilometre 26 on the Finlay Creek Forest Service Road.
“Some time after 4 in the morning on August 13 one of the rental cabins at Whitetail exploded,” Ayers told the Bulletin. “The roof blew off and the cabin is demolished.”
Ayers says two families from Britain had rented what he described as a duplex type cabin.
He says in spite of the severity of the explosion, all eight people were accounted for.
“One boy, 10 to 12 years old, was flown to Calgary with lacerations, but not life-threatening,” Ayers said.
Ayers says the boy was actually blown out the second floor window when the cabin exploded. He was found by neighbouring tourists from another cabin.
“It was just very, very fortunate that he survived, that everyone got out,” Ayers said. “It could have been tragic.”
He says that police are fairly certain that propane was the cause of the explosion.
“We can’t prove it — there’s nothing left of the cabin — but we are confident that it was a propane explosion.”