Gas leak in Uphill forces evacuation of houses
By Nelson Daily Staff
A string of houses were evacuated after a back hoe operator struck a gas line in the 400 Block of Howe Street in Uphill Friday morning.
Nelson Fire Rescue received the call at 9:13 a.m. of a report a residential gas line was dug up by a back hoe.
The resulting accident allowed gas to leak.
Two Nelson Fire Rescue personal responded to the call.
A strong odour of natural gas was apparent when members arrived as well as a pulled line extruding from the ground.
The wind was blowing the escaping gas towards the residential properties on the north side of the street and in all four houses were evacuated as a safety precaution.
A high volume fan was used to direct and dissipate the escaping gas away from the houses and any potential ignition sources.
Nelson public works crews responded to assist FortisBC Gas with excavating the line.
Nelson Hydro crews responded to ensure that the excavation did not compromise the hydro pole.
FortisBC Gas employe was able to crimp off the line and stop the flow of gas.
As the fire crews were picking up from this call we received another call reporting lines down and sparking on Perrier Road.
The duty crew was able to respond with the Nelson Hydro crew and assess this situation. As it turned out the lines down were telephone and television lines. The sparking was a result of the lines contacting each other when the other lines were pulled.
Nelson Fire Rescue would like to remind everyone to ensure that they have made all of the necessary calls prior to doing any excavation and to always treated downed lines as potentially “live” until hydro crews can get on scene and confirm that there is no danger.
