By Canadian Press

From chemical burns to a logging truck crash, RCMP describe events at Fairy Creek

Nov 12, 2021 | 2:37 PM

LAKE COWICHAN, B.C. — It’s been an eventful week for Mounties and protesters in the Fairy Creek area of southern Vancouver Island that included an exploded can of bear spray and an RCMP crash involving a logging truck. 

Police say in a release they received a report Tuesday that someone had sustained chemical burns to their face from a cooking stove and others had trouble breathing. 

Members of the BC Ambulance Service determined that a can of bear spray had overheated and exploded inside a bus, which then caught on fire, leading five people, including children, to be treated at the scene.

It was the same day three officers were hurt on a logging road between Lake Cowichan and Port Renfrew, when two RCMP vehicles were involved in a crash with a logging truck. 

The officers had been on their way to enforce a court injunction against blockades set up to protest old-growth logging.

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The Mounties say they made eight arrests this week while enforcing the injunction, removing protesters from obstacles and devices they had locked themselves to, bringing the total number of arrests since last spring to 1,168.

A portion of the logging road that had been washed out by heavy rain was also repaired to allow vehicles through, a statement issued Friday from the RCMP says. 

Mounties continue to look for a missing 61-year-old man who was last seen walking between two encampments in the Fairy Creek area on Oct. 13, it adds.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Nov. 12, 2021. 

The Canadian Press