A fire at the Winfield Bakery in Lake Country, March 10, 2022.
Image Credit: FACEBOOK/Duaine Reynolds
March 11, 2022 - 11:32 AM
After a Lake Country bakery was ravaged by fire one of its bakers is hoping community support will help the owners rebuild.
The Lake Country Fire Department received a call that the Winfield Bakery was on fire at roughly 6:21 p.m. yesterday, March 10, said deputy fire chief Brent Penner, He added many people were documenting the blaze via social media but didn’t make a 9-1-1 call until later.
READ MORE: Fire destroys Winfield Bakery in Lake Country
Upon arrival, firefighters found heavy smoke was already billowing out of the bakery’s attic and awning, and flames were seen coming out the front window of the building.
The building was almost completely destroyed but firefighters are hoping that some personal possessions in the basement will be salvageable.
“The whole roof system is coming down so you really just have the four walls on the business operations side of things that could be salvageable,” Penner said.
The fire department responded with 11 firefighters and two trucks, and received help from two stations in Carr’s Landing and Oyama.
The fire started on the west side of the structure but the fire department is still looking for the exact cause. There is no indication at this time the fire was suspicious, he said.
The owners have insurance.
The Winfield Bakery has been a Central Okanagan staple for more than 45 years. Previous owner and current baker, Fritz Prinwall, sold it to the current owners three years ago but stayed on to help them transition.
He made a Facebook post the bakery was looking for more employees and to discuss the potential for new ownership only a few hours before it went up in flames.
The current owners are in their 60s and they have a few years left on their lease, Prinwall said. “I tried to organize things for the future and then the fire happened, a couple of hours after I posted what I posted. For a lot of people, it looked very fishy but it’s not, it’s just the way it came together.”
He was shocked to hear that it was on fire.
“I jumped in my car, didn’t have socks on, went down to the scene and talked to the fire department, I know all the guys. I talked to the owner, his wife is totally exhausted, and of course he doesn’t know where he’s headed,” he said.
“Everything was destroyed in one night, and they worked very hard for three years,” Prinwall said.
Prinwall started an online fundraiser to support the bakery’s employees who are now without jobs, he said.
The owner may try to set up a bakery across the street in another leased space, he said. He has bakery equipment in his garage in Oyama but he’s also moving to Sicamous in eight weeks. It’s currently all up in the air, he said.
You can find the online fundraiser here.
To contact a reporter for this story, email Carli Berry or call 250-864-7494 or email the editor. You can also submit photos, videos or news tips to the newsroom and be entered to win a monthly prize draw.
We welcome your comments and opinions on our stories but play nice. We won't censor or delete comments unless they contain off-topic statements or links, unnecessary vulgarity, false facts, spam or obviously fake profiles. If you have any concerns about what you see in comments, email the editor in the link above.
News from © iNFOnews, 2022