Citizen photo by Brent Braaten Dan Hoffarth, 15, uses the waterslide at Ness Lake Bible Camp. See related story on page 13. WEDNESDAY, AUGUST 29, 2007 $1.00 (HOME DELIVERED: 61 CENTS A DAY)

SPORTS

Police eager to speak to attack victim
by FRANK PEEBLES Citizen staff The 14-year-old victim of an early morning street attack was in much better condition in hospital Tuesday and police hope to speak with him back in Prince George soon. RCMP said it was not a knife that sent him by air ambulance to Vancouver General Hospital after the 3 a.m. assault near the Victoria Street McDonald's on Saturday, as was previously reported. There was a weapon used, but it has not been disclosed, police clarified, nor has the youth's name been announced. "(The victim) is near to a full recovery," said Prince George RCMP Staff Sgt. Quentin Smith, head of the city's plainclothes unit. "Indications are that he will be transported back to Prince George within the next short period of time." Smith said coverage of the incident has had positive results for investigators. "People are now phoning in, which is positive, and that is what we needed," he said. "We hope that continues because the information is helpful to us." He did not say if a clear suspect or suspects had emerged. The incident occurred when three 14-year-old boys were walking to a nearby convenience store and encountered a group of other males they did not know. An altercation broke out causing minor injuries to two of the teens and life-threatening injuries to the one evacuated to Vancouver hospital.

Success runs in the family /8
Citizen photo by Brent Braaten

Council endorses airport land plan
Firefighters arrived at a farm on Upper Fraser Road at around 5:30 a.m. to find a barn full of hay on fire.

Firefighters stop barn fire from spreading into forest
by FRANK PEEBLES Citizen staff Victor Tiani watched the first hay fire he's seen in 50plus years of farming burn the family's barns down Tuesday morning. You could smell the dry grass and old boards burning 10 kilometres away from his Willow River property, which is now primarily operated by his son Darcy Tiani and daughter-in-law Melinda Halliday. "I would say in about 15 minutes of us finding the fire, the buildings were gone," said Halliday. "A neighbour across the street spotted the flames at about 4:30 in the morning, got us up and called the fire department." The Willow River Volunteer Fire Department could do nothing to save the large hay shed full of stacked round bales. The wind was blowing east to west so the inferno in the large hay structure carried downwind had no trouble jumping to the calving barn a few feet away. It too was full of hay and also was consumed by the flames. A huge lone cottonwood about 250 feet away had to be felled because it also caught fire and was threatening to spread the fire into the dry pine forest nearby. The four fuel tanks only 30 feet south of the fire, plus the stocked wood shed, vehicle garage and family home, all escaped any damage because of the quick response of the fire department. "They were here in minutes, they were quick to get on it," said Darcy Tiani. "If the fire had jumped any further this way into the wood shed or fuel tanks, who knows where it would have stopped. We really owe that to the firefighters." The cause of the blaze has not been determined. The leading theory so far, according to fire chief Leonard Griffin, is so-called spontaneous combustion in the hay bales. Spontaneous combustion isn't really spontaneous at all. A series of organic chemical reactions take place when green or wet grass is baled and stacked tightly into a confined space. A composting process takes place that causes significant heat within the stack. If dry hay is too close, it can burst into flames. "We suspect it was the hay," Griffin said as he and a contingent of firefighters passively watched the still enormous pile of hay burn intensely. It looked like a pile of twisted ash 30 feet tall until the wind would break open a pocket and a plume of bright flame would roar into the air, often with the force of a blowtorch. If a bale suddenly came loose and cascaded down, its grassy innards would erupt like lava. Only skeletal remains of the barns were evident. "At this point all we are doing is letting it burn down on its own," said Griffin, who expected it to continue smoldering and erupting for at least a week. "We contained the fire to the barns, kept it from the other buildings, and now we're just letting it work itself down. If we had a hydrant or an unlimited water supply like that we would douse it out but that is impossible here so we will let it take its own course now that the rest of the place is safe." -- See RAIL on page 3

NEWS

by MARK NIELSEN Citizen staff City council voted unanimously Monday night in favour of supporting an application from L&M Engineering to the agricultural land commission. L&M is submitting the application largely on behalf of Henry Rempel, a New Westminster-based businessman who is trying to assemble about 900 hectares of privately-owned and Crown land around the airport for light industrial development in anticipation of the airport runway being extended to handle large cargo jets once government funding is in place. Communities are racing to make industrial land available as a result of the Prince Rupert container terminal, Mayor Colin Kinsley said before the vote. "This transportation corridor is going at breakneck speed and that's not comfortable for planners, and I respect that because we hire planners so we don't get ourselves in these binds," he said. "But sometimes ... when it comes to competition, second place is first loser." City staff recommended council hold off its support until a study is completed before deciding if an application to exclude nearly 600 hectares of land near the Prince George airport from the agricultural land reserve should be supported. But council voted 6-3 to overrule the staff recommendation. -- See CITY on page 3

Truscott acquitted /7

INDEX
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58307

00100

8

Annie's Mailbox . . . . . . . .16 Bridge . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Business. . . .. . . . . . . . .22-24 City, B.C. . . . . . . . . . .3,5,6,13

Classified . . . . . . . . . . .17-21 Comics . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 Crossword . . . . . . . . . . . . .14 Entertainment . . . . . . . . . . 15

Horoscope . . . . . . . . . . . . . 16 Nation . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .6,7 Sports . . . . . . . . . . . . . . .8-12 World . . . . . . . . . . . . . . . 26,27

High: 18 Low: 10 page 2

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