Tuesday, February 2, 2010

Ice Road Fatal

One person is dead following a collision on an ice road on Lakeof the Woods south of Kenora.

The OPP say they were called out to an accident on SabaskongBay last Friday morning around 11 AM.

Police say a truck and a snowmachine collided on the ice road.

The operator of the sled, a 49 year old man from the Onigaming First Nation was killed.

So far his name has not been released.

Members of the OPP's Technical Traffic Collision Investigation Unit have been called in to look into the cause of the accident.

Fire at Duplex

Fire at a duplex in the north end of town caused extensive smokedamage to the building yesterday afternoon.

Kenora's Fire and Emergency Services Department was called out shortly after 11:30 to a unit on Granite Court.

Fire Chief Warren Brinkman says they were able to contain theblaze to the room of origin.

He adds that the fire is not considered suspicious, andno-one was injured.

The cause is still being investigated.

Future of Forestry

Mills in this region need to expand beyond producing just pulp and paper.

That's the recommendation of a new report by the Forest Products Association of Canada.

Catherine Cobden is a spokesperson for the group and says mills need to diversify into other products like bio-fuels and bio-products.

Cobden says mills would be able to employ five times as many workers using the integrated production appoach.

Officer Injured

The Kenora Detachment of the OPP is investigating the circumstances surroundingan accident that saw one of its officer hit by a vehicle while on duty.

The officer was doing traffic control on Veteran's Drive Friday night around10:00 when he was hit by a passing car.

He was taken to hospital for treatment of non-life threatening injuries.

The OPP say a section of Veteran's Drive was closed for several hoursnear 4th Street North while the Technical Traffic Collision InvestigationUnit assisted officers at the scene.

Environment Canada

Last month was unusual in Kenora for a couple of reasons.

The weather was warmer than normal, and we also experienceJanuary rain.

Environment Canada climatologist, Geoff Coulson says overallit was a pretty nice month in terms of weather.

Coulson says we received over nine millimeters of rain last month, compared to an average January rainfall amount of just0.4 millimeters.