Monday afternoon roof fire at Royal Inland Hospital extinguished quickly

KAMLOOPS — Interior Health is assessing the damage after fire broke out at the Phil and Jennie Gaglardi Patient Care Tower at Royal Inland Hospital Monday (June 27).

Kamloops Fire Rescue (KFR) was called to the tower at about 2:15 p.m. Monday.

“There were a bunch of roofers up there doing some roofing,” said KFR’s Lt. Henry Chin. “The roof caught on fire. We attended with a five-man attack crew, extinguished the fire, looked for extensions and we found nothing else.”

Interior Health spokesperson Michaela Swan says the fire was sparked by roofing work being undertaken to connect the older hospital building with the new tower.

“The damage is minimal, however the air intake to our pharmacy was impacted,” Swan told CFJC Today. “Crews are just confirming what’s required to ensure that we’re able to get our pharmacy operational in a timely manner.”

“The main area of the pharmacy is still operational and we still have pharmacy services,” she continued. “There’s just an area where we mix highly specialized medications that is needing some additional attention.”

Image Credit: CFJC Today / Adam Donnelly

Interior Health is readying the tower for its opening next month. Swan says the fire should not delay that event.

“No injuries at this point in time and we don’t anticipate this will impact the opening of the new Gaglardi Tower later in July,” said Swan. “Although it was an unfortunate incident, it was a really good opportunity for us to test our emergency procedures in the new tower as we haven’t had any real-life emergencies there. We’re really pleased with timely response of everybody involved.”