What I thought was a truly awesome summer with no rain and super hot temperatures, has turned into a hellish nightmare - literally. All across southern BC, forests are burning, people are loosing everything, and it's now creeping up on some of BC's larger communities, such as Kelowna. There is such a fear over the fires that even parks in Vancouver have been closed to the public...
Kelowna, B.C., Aug. 18, 2003 - Smoke from a forest fire billows into the sky. Looking southeast over Okanagan Lake towards CedarCreek Winery.
(Photo: BRIAN SPROUT/Special to The Vancouver Sun)
B.C. park reduced to ash but Okanagan towns spared for now
canada.com
Thursday, August 21, 2003
NARAMATA, B.C. (CP) - As a mushrooming fire reduced much of Okanagan Mountain Park to ash, one resident of a small lakeshore town on evacuation alert said Thursday there was nothing left to do but pray.
"Our community is together on this," said Linda Caton, 44, who lives in Naramata, where roughly 1,000 have been told to prepare to leave on short notice, along with residents of some 2,000 homes in neighbouring Kelowna suburbs.
"We are praying for winds to change, praying for weather to help," she said. "It's in God's hands at this point."
Caton said she'd packed her most precious belongs since the alert was issued earlier this week. "And believe me, when this happens, you really discover what that that is," she said.
Huge balls of ash and sparks were raining down on yards in the small community, better known for its wineries and lazy summer living, said resident Jerry Simmons.
"I'm a former volunteer firefighter, but retired, so I know how bad it is," said Simmons. "It's bad, but there is nothing we can do until we know for sure what that fire decides to do."
While some residents have already left the area, Simmons said he would stay until a clearer picture of where winds were moving emerged.
Earlier in the day, fire officials said they expected the blaze, which has already forced the abandonment of some homes, to remain fairly stable.
"There was some thick cloud cover (Wednesday) which cooled the temperature, causing some cooling within the fire, so things have stabilized allowing crews to gain some ground," said Brian Brown, a fire information officer, at a news conference in nearby Penticton.
Overnight, the Okanagan Mountain Park fire grew to 130 square kilometres, up from 110 square kilometres Wednesday. On Tuesday it measured just 20 square kilometres.
Part of the growth by Thursday morning was due to a controlled burnoff to try and deny bone-dry fuel to the fire, said Brown.
About 110 firefighters and 11 helicopters were working to control the blaze that has so far consumed most of the park, he said.
A fleet of 50 bulldozers and other pieces of heavy equipment were racing to build a fire guard around the blaze, now about 10 kilometres away from Naramata and Kelowna.
And the Okanagan Mountain park blaze is just one of a half-dozen major fires threatening southern B.C. communities, where more than 3,000 firefighters, including hundreds of Canadian soldiers, are battling the flames.
It's been a record year for potentially home-wrecking fires, said Kevin Matuga, a fire information officer for the B.C. Forest Service.
"It is unusual for us to have more than one major interface fire in a season," he said Thursday, referring to the type of wildfire that encroaches on communities.
"This year we have had seven major interface fires in the Kamloops fire centre alone."
So far, B.C. air tankers have dumped more than 34 million litres of retardant and water to stop those blazes from spreading, compared with only two million litres last year, he said.
"We are doing everything we can and we are ensuring to the best of our ability the safety of the public," Matuga said.
Thousands of southern Interior residents remained out of their homes as hot, dry weather and high winds fanned the flames of about 850 fires burning across British Columbia, almost half in the Kamloops area alone.
Near Kamloops, the half-contained McLure-Barriere fire was about 250 square kilometres on Thursday, fought by almost 1,000 firefighters and 12 helicopters;
East of Kamloops, the McGillvray fire near Chase had grown to about 69 square kilometres, fanned by unfavourable winds, and was only 20 per cent contained. About 850 people remain out of their homes and another 2,600 on evacuation alert.
West of Kamloops, the Venables Valley fire near Ashcroft remained relatively stable at about 62 square kilometres.
In the Kootenay region, the Ingersol fire near Nelson, remained relatively stable at about 16 square kilometres.
About 858 U.S. firefighters and 150 Canadians were battling the Togo wildfire fire in Washington state near the B.C. border, slowing its advance towards Grand Forks, B.C.
The fire crisis prompted the B.C. government to declare a state of emergency Aug. 2 and issue a voluntary travel advisory asking people to avoid the southern B.C. backcountry.
That restriction, which includes a plan to record the licence plates of people driving in the backcountry, has at least one watchdog group crying foul.
"Unless travel into the backcountry is actually prohibited we would wonder where the legal authority to collect that personal information comes from," said Kirk Tousaw of the B.C. Civil Liberties Association.
The fire fear has hit the Vancouver area, where suburban parks and trails have been put off limits to hikers.
Vancouver has imposed a smoking ban in parched city parks, including its landmark Stanley Park. One parks board official warned a carelessly thrown cigarette butt could incinerate the city's crown jewel in an hour.
The B.C. government applied for federal disaster aid after the McLure fire destroyed the village of Louis Creek but Natural Resources Minister Herb Dhaliwal said Thursday no figures have been submitted yet.
The province said earlier this week it is waiting for the situation to stabilize before producing a detailed assessment.
Dhaliwal said he talked with Defence Minister Doug McCallum, responsible for disaster aid, on Thursday, asking him to act on B.C. requests as quickly as possible.
"In terms of any disaster I'm not aware of anything that's been bigger than what's happened here," he said from Ottawa. "I think that everyone will agree that this is unprecedented."
Dhaliwal said he has also asked McCallum to visit the region, where more than 700 soldiers are fighting the flames alongside fire crews.
Other federal fire help has included satellite communications gear, offers of aircraft, firefighting equipment and a special fire weather forecaster.
Employment insurance claims for those affected by the fires are also being expedited, Dhaliwal said.
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