An orchard worker’s attempted good deed, burning off some surplus cardboard, led to the destruction of his employer’s house in rural Rutland on Wednesday.

Longtime growers Glenn and Lorretta Cross lost their one-storey home at Springfield Road and Highway-33 to a fire Wednesday afternoon. Cross says the man he’d hired to help them plant wine grapes thought he was doing a good thing by burning the cardboard boxes the plants had come in, but high winds set a cedar hedge on fire, and the hedge fire lit the nearby house on fire.

Kelowna Fire Department crews, arriving a bit before 3pm, could only keep the flames from damaging outbuildings, and the overhead powerlines.

The couple and their dog escaped unhurt, but their cat perished, as the house and the attached garage were gutted by the flames. Some possessions, including a Harley-Davidson motorcycle, were saved.

The Cross’s, who built the house more than 30 years ago, are insured, and say they will rebuild.

One of West Kelowna’s most impressive community projects gets another test run over the coming long-weekend, before its official grand opening on May 26th.

The childrens’ spray park in the Westbank town centre took four years to build, and featured major community contributions. The main contributor was the Rotary Club of Westbank, which raised 216-thousand dollars, but other donations came from Okanagan Kids Care, the District of West Kelowna, the Westbank First Nation, and the Daybreak Rotary Club.

The childrens’ spray park, located in Westbank Centre Park, opened for two weeks last September, but this will be its first full season.

A feature, made-for-TV-movie is about to be shot here in the Okanagan. And even better, a lot of work is being promised for local technicians.

Vancouver-based Sepia Films will spend four weeks in our area, starting late this month, shooting a movie called ‘A Mother’s Nightmare’, starring actor/singer Jessica Lowndes of ‘Beverly Hills 90-210′ fame, and Annabeth Gish of ‘Maddie’ and ‘Pretty Little Liars’.

Okanagan film commissioner Jon Summerland says the producers’ commitment to hire 95-percent of its crew locally is great news for the Okanagan’s film industry.

Specific locations will be announced, but a lot of the shooting is supposed to happen around Kelowna and West Kelowna.

Vending food and drink to beach-goers is one thing, but what about serving people who are waiting for a bus?

Kelowna council had no problem this week, choosing from three applicants to select the ‘Service Star F-and-B’ company to provide food and beverage service at City Park’s Hot Sands Beach.

But when it came to a mobile food-booth for the Queensway transit loop, not one expression of interest came in to city hall.

Councilor Andre Blanleil suggested that maybe it’s because there’s a Subway restaurant just metres away from the bus loop, and other restaurants not much further way, so why should the city compete with the private sector?

The Queensway bus-stop food-booth idea, apparently, will not be pursued.

The city gains 15-thousand dollars in rental revenue, in it’s three year deal with the Hot Sands’ seasonal vendor.

A man charged with beating and robbing a Kelowna pawnbroker several months ago must now stay behind bars until his trial.

23-year old Zachary Worrall had been out on bail, but his parents withdrew the 24-thousand dollars they’d put up, after their son was caught using drugs at a recovery house.

Back in February, the owner of Save More Pawn on Asher Road was seriously injured when he was attacked with a weapon. He was also robbed of 12-thousand dollars in jewelry.

Worrall’s next court appearance is next Tuesday.

You can imagine the public outrage that’s already beginning to bubble, with news that the man who savagely killed six people in the notorious Johnson-Bentley murder cases 30 years ago, is out to apply for parole this coming September.

53-year old David Shearing, who now calls himself David Ennis, says he will try to convince the parole board he is no longer a threat to the public, at a hearing set for September 18th.

In August of 1982, Ennis, or Shearing, killed six members of the Johnson and Bentley families, including two young girls aged 11 and 13, at a provincial campground near Clearwater. The victims were from West Kelowna or had close ties to the community–the Johnson-Bentley Aquatic Centre was later named in their memories.

Ennis got life without parole for 25 years for his crimes. He was rejected for parole in 2008, and turned down an opportunity to apply for parole, in 2010.

It’s a local tragedy that’s been getting grim national attention–a floatplane crash near the Okanagan Connector early Sunday evening that has killed all three people who were on board.

The private DeHavilland Beaver crashed just before 7pm Sunday, after taking off from Okanagan Lake near Peachland, on a return flight to Pitt Meadows. We’re told the plane had arrived from Pitt Meadows earlier in the day, and had dropped off two people from its original load of five, before taking off for the return flight.

West Kelowna Fire-Rescue was called out at 6:50pm Sunday to put out a small forest fire started by the crash, about 200 metres off the Connector, near Brenda Mine.

Just after 8am Monday, Transportation Safety Board investigator Bill Yearwood confirmed that none of the three people on board the plane had made it out of the crash alive. But he could not confirm whether the owner of the aircraft had been at the controls, or where any of the people were from.

Yearwood said Transportation Safety Board inspectors were to join police and a coroner at the Okanagan Connector crash site later Monday morning.

Weekend temperatures were hot, leading local authorities to go on the flood watch again.

With temperatures expected to hit 30 degrees today (Monday) and in the mid-20′s Tuesday, the regional district reminds people in low-lying or flood-prone areas to be prepared in case the water levels suddenly rise.

Boaters are still advised to be careful about floating debris being carried into the lake. And people are urged to be cautious near creek banks, and to be sure their children and their pets are kept away.

Central Okanagan West regional director Jim Edgson says he wants a minimum five year plan implemented for improvements to Westside Road.

Edgson, who drives the narrow road almost daily, says he’s no longer in favour of simply maintaining or repairing it, but wants it completely rehabilitated.

A recent BCAA survey declared Westside Road the worst road in the province, because of its poor condition, and because its record of serious, often fatal accidents.

Edgson says the Rural Westside Road Improvement Committee has a meeting set for tomorrow (Tuesday) with Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure officials, and he plans to keep tabs on what happens with that session.

On the surface it might have looked like overkill, but Interior Health and Kelowna Fire Department officials say Thursday’s response to a small chemical spill at the Kelowna hospital was totally appropriate.

After authorities got word of a spill in an ambulatory-care operating room just after 1pm Thursday, all kinds of emergency vehicles responded, including fire engines and a hazmat unit.

A decontamination team discovered and isolated what turned out to be a small spill of ‘phenol’, a chemical used to clean surgical instruments, and sometimes used as an oral disinfectant. It can irritate the eyes and create other health issues.

Following protocol, the spill area was locked down, cleaned, and neutralized, and the room remained closed for the rest of the day.

Interior Health and Kelowna Fire officials say the response to the relatively minor spill shows that the emergency system works.