A sudden fire in an ice fishing shack on Lake Windermere near the Invermere Bay Condos received a flood of attention by local fire departments on Sunday (January 13) night.

The newest addition to the string of enclosed fishing holes caught fire around 8 p.m. after its owner left without extinguishing the flames in the shack’s small wood stove. According to Jimmy McGilvery, the owner of one of the nearby shacks who called the fire in to 911 using his cell phone, the shack had been newly set up that morning and its owner had made the mistake of setting his stove on a wooden bench.

“He didn’t have legs on the stove, the bench got hot, and caught fire,” said McGilvery. “I was just ready to go home and noticed the fire.

“You’d think the guy would put his legs on.”

Firefighters with the Invermere Fire Department attended to the fire with support from the Windermere Fire Department for ice safety support. The shack sits about 125 metres out from the shoreline and four lengths of firehouse were used to get close enough to extinguish the flames.