Manager Wayne Wade surveys the aftermath of suspected arson at the Village Towers apartment building.
ARSON SUSPECTED APARTMENT
‘It went up real fast - too fast’
by MARILYN STORIE Citizen StafT
Arson is suspected as the cause of an overnight fire at the Village Towers apartment building at 1245 20th Ave.
Manager Wayne Wade said today the fourth floor hallway where the 3 a.m. fire began went up “real fast1”
“Too fast,” said Wade, “considering there’s nothing in the hallway but carpet, the walls are gyproc and the doors are wood with a steel core."
Wade said today he suspects a flammable substance was used to ignite the hallway.
Fire officials and RCMP are investigating the fire to determine its cause.
“At this time we are checking into the possibility that the cause of the fire is arson,” said Floyd Stene, deputy fire chief.
While Prince George firefighters attended the fire at the 12-storey building and promptly extinguished it, apartments on the fourth floor and the hallway sustained considerable damage.
When the alarm went off at 3 a.m. Wade said he was awake. “There were a couple of other problems in die building I had been attending to, and I sat down to watch some TV and was thinking about going to bed.
“The alarm went off, I told my wife to
phone the fire department and then I was out the door to check it out.”
Fourteen residents and one fireman were treated by medical personnel for smoke inhalation. Firemen said no other injuries were suffered.
While the fire destruction was confined to the fourth floor, the building sustained considerable smoke damage on its upper floors.
Wade, who lives on the 11th floor, said some minor smoke damage was apparent even on the two top floors. While no official estimate of damage is yet available, Wade said it would have to be “in the thousands.”
There are 94 separate living units in the apartment building. Four of them are currently vacant While the majority of residents were back in their apartments this morning, fourth-floor apartment dwellers are not as lucky.
“Some of them are staying in hotels,” said Wade. “Others have relatives in the building so they’re temporarily staying with them.”
In compliance with an order of the fire marshall, a 24-hour fire patrol by four people is in effect until fire alarms can be reset and approved by the fire marshall.
Stene said the main problems with a fire this size is containing the blaze and evacuating the residents.
“A lot of people left the building on their own, but 30 or 40 of them had to be escorted out by firemen,” said Stene. “There were some people who told us, ‘This is a fire-safe building. Why should we have to leave?’ ”
Stene said a number of apartments on the fourth floor suffered some damage from flames because residents leaving the building had left their doors open.
Meanwhile, a second fire overnight shortly after 10 p.m. gutted a mobile home at 7084 Glenview in the Hait Highway area.
According to Stene, the male resident had been trying to thaw the water pipes under his bathroom minutes before the fire started. Then the resident had briefly left the trailer and the fire began.
“It was determined to be radiant or direct flame that ignited combustile material under the trailer,” said Stene.
The flames spread quickly throughout the mobile home, giving arriving firemen little chance to do more than put out the fire.
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UN leader plots final peace foray
From AP-Reuters-CP
With time and hope for peace running out, the head of the United Nations stopped in Europe today to plot what could be the final peace mission to Baghdad before next week’s deadline for Iraq to leave Kuwait or face the threat of attack.
UN Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar said he has no specific plan to present to Iraqi President Saddam Hussein. But UN diplomats say proposals could include UN supervision of troop withdrawals and frameworks for possible Middle East peace talks.
“I am very satisfied with my meeting with the 12 (EC members). I received total encouragement from them,” Perez de Cuellar told reporters after a 75-minute meeting at the United Nations’ European headquarters in Geneva.
Earlier today in Paris, the UN leader said he would be “the spokesman of the international community” on his mission to Baghdad.
Perez de Cuellar met with President Francois Mitterrand and later told reporters the French leader had encouraged his weekend trip to Iraq.
He said this added to encouragement he has already received from the Soviet Union, the United
States, Japan and non-aligned countries as he attempts to prevent war ahead of Tuesday’s UN deadline for Iraq to end its occupation of Kuwait or face being forced out
“I can say that in Baghdad I will be in a sense the spokesman of the international community,” Perez de Cuellar said. “I hope that I will be heard. I hope to find a desire for peace.
“I do not dare say I am optimistic but I have hope.”
Saddam reiterated today that he will not pull out of Kuwait without a settlement of the Palestinian problem in Israeli-occupied territory.
Speaking to Muslim scholars attending a conference in Baghdad, Saddam also said he is certain of victory because his armed forces have “combat experience, unlike the Americans using military manuals.”
In Ottawa on Thursday, the External Affairs Department advised Canadians who plan to leave the Persian Gulf area to do so immediately. The updated travel advice affects Canadians in Saudi Arabia, Bahrain, Qatar, Kuwait, Iraq, Jordan, Yemen, Syria, Eastern Turkey, Israel and the Israeli-occupied territories.
Pr. George ridings support premier
Jobless rate rises
Citizen news services
The official unemployment rate in the Central Interior jumped to 9.4 percent in December from 7.8 per cent in November, Statistics Canada reported today.
However, the November rate was widely questioned by government economists. This month, the agency cautioned that figures may fluctuate widely for small areas of the country because they are based on small statistical samples.
According to the government agency, the best place to job hunt in the province is on Vancouver Island, where the unemployment rate is 8.7 per cent, and the worst area for job hunting is in the Okanagan, where 13.4 per cent of the labor force is unemployed.
For British Columbia as a whole, the rate jumped 0.4 to 92. per cent
The national unemployment rate jumped to 9.3 per cent in December, up from 9.1 per cent in November, Statistics Canada said today.
The increase continues a trend that started in April, the agency said.
That brings the average unemployment rate for the year to 8.1 per cent, compared with 7.5 per cent in 1989.
Since last April alone the unemployment rate has climbed from 7.7 per cent
by PAUL STRICKLAND Citizen Staff
The executives of the three Prince George-area Social Credit riding associations have lined up solidly behind Premier Bill Vander Zalm and decisively rejected calls for leadership review.
Regional director Dennis Jackson and Prince George North association president Jim Scott made the announcement at a press conference today.
“The question of the local associations’ position on calling for a full membership meeting by each of the ridings for the purpose of leadership review was voted on and soundly defeated by all three executives,” Jackson continued.
“We unanimously agreed that our job is to continue strong support of a responsible and progressive government and its leader, and to elect three Social Credit candidates in our area in the next election to enhance our representation in government for the betterment of all the people in the regions they will represent,” he concluded.
The executive of the Prince George-Omineca riding association met Monday, but Jackson and Scott refused to comment on the results of that meeting until today's press conference.
Prior to the October Socred convention in Vancouver, a member of the Prince C nre-Mount Robson Social Cr* *• 3ti. ency Association, wi«. * .. to be
identified, inioua*. t i ne Citizen that delegates were iking a letter
requesting a leadership review to the convention.
That call for leadership review was properly resolved at the convention. Questions about Vander Zalm's leadership within the Prince George-Mount Robson association have been settled and it, too, is now solidly behind the premier, Jackson said.
“That was an issue, and that was resolved,” he said at today’s press conference. “It was a question last fall prior to the convention, which is the right place to bring it up — not after.
“There’s part of the constitution that deals with how you acclaim your leader, and that issue is totally dead right now, and I believe it will be in the future.”
The executives of the Prince George North and Prince George-Omineca Social Credit riding associations met Thursday.
In addition, members of the Prince George North Social Credit constituency association voted u-nanimously to support the premier at a well-attended regular meeting Thursday night, Scott said.
Social Credit paity members in the Malahat-Juan de Fuca riding voted 52-27 Thursday in favor of a leadership review, according to a Canadian Press story today.
It was the third riding in two nights to fall short of the 75-percent majority required by the party’s constitution.
Meanwhile, the Prince George North association is working on printing signs in anticipation of an election, Scott said.
Canada bolsters Gulf presence
OTTAWA (CP) — Canada will beef up its military presence in the Persian Gulf with an additional six CF-18 fighter-jets, 130 service personnel and an air tanker, the head of the Canadian Forces said today.
Gen. John de Chastelain told a news conference the move did not signal the military’s belief that war with Iraq is inevitable.
“Rather it is evidence of our commitment to ensure that we be fully capable of meeting our en-
gagements to the multinational forces,” he said.
The dispatching of a half-dozen of the sophisticated jet-fighters does not represent a shift in Canada’s role in the gulf to an offensive from a defensive position, he said.
But Lloyd Axworthy, Liberal external affairs critic, said today the move broke a promise by Prime Minister Brian Mulroney not to make such changes without discussions in Parliament first
“If that decision has already been taken, then I think Mr. Mulroney is answerable for another real transgression, another broken promise, another broken commitment” said Axworthy.
No decision has been made on a British request for a field hospital unit Mulroney was to discuss the request today with British Prime Minister John Major, said de Chastelain.
It was likely the proposed field hospital, with about 500 related
personnel, would go to Saudi Arabia where most British troops are stationed.
De Chastelain refused to predict how many casualties would arise out of a war with Iraq, but he was blunt about the nature of such conflict.
“Any war is a brutal war,” he said.
Currently, Canada has 18 CF-18 fighters in the gulf region along with two Canadian destroyers and
a supply ship. In all, about 1,700 Canadian men and women are already based at Bahrain and Qatar on the north coast of Saudi Arabia.
De Chastelain was asked if Canadian troops were about to go to war.
“I hope we don’t and if we do, I hope it’s short,” he replied.
De Chastelain said that in his opinion the Mulroney cabinet has the necessary authority to make
these additional deployments and even go to war.
The additional CF-18s would provide the Canadian Forces with more flexibility, but de Chastelain said the fresh contingent of jet-fighters, along with the 18 already in the gulf region, would likely remain in a defensive mode.
“I anticipate being asked to maintain the current roles that we have whether hostilities break out or whether they do not”
The Prince George I nside T I HI E J
Citizen
FRIDAY, JANUARY 11,1991 79P£|K7S Low tonight: -7
National park under gun 5
Ben runs again tonight 15
Healthy hamburger recipe 28