Kelowna Mounties assist in evacuation efforts as crews fight wildfires
KELOWNA – A wildfire on Knox Mountain in Kelowna, BC, led to the evacuation of more than 400 properties as emergency services worked Saturday to put out the blaze at Okanagan Lake.
Jodie Foster, an extension officer at the Central Okanagan Emergency Operations Center, said two evacuation orders have been issued for the Magic Estates and Poplar Point areas of Kelowna, covering a total of 448 properties, due to a wildfire.
Copl. Judith Bertrand of the Kelowna RCMP said the cause of the fire is unknown as the situation in Knox Mountain Park was still unfolding in the afternoon.
“The Magic Estates area is a fairly dense residential area,” Bertrand said in an interview. “In addition, the park is visited by many people who celebrate Canada Day, visit, walk, so we have to make sure that these people are safe.”
Bertrand said police assisted firefighters with the evacuation to ensure public safety and that the wind made it difficult to predict the direction of the fire.
The City of Kelowna has closed Knox Mountain Park until further notice.
Bertand said people had to be evacuated as firefighting was underway, and warned people in the area not to get too close as smoke billowed into the air over Lake Okanagan.
She said Kelowna faces the prospect of wildfires every summer and that they are “always in the back of our minds here in the Okanagan region.”
“However, we need to act quickly, we need to work with our partner agencies to make sure everything is done as safely and quickly as possible,” she said.
Later Saturday night, evacuation orders for property in the Poplar Point, Knox Mountain, Magic Estates and Clifton areas were downgraded to warnings. Residents were told they were willing to leave with little to no notice.
This year’s wildfire season has been particularly devastating elsewhere in BC, with more than 9,620 square miles burned since April 1, said Pedro Roldan-Delgado, a firefighter’s officer at the Prince George Fire Center.
Roldan-Delgado said the province has experienced 214 wildfires since April, putting this year’s wildfire season on track to vastly surpass the area that burned last year.
In the 2022 season, he said, there were 247 wildfires that burned just over 590 square kilometers.
He said firefighters are currently dealing with 68 active wildfires, while lightning strikes and dry conditions are fueling new fires.
The Ittsi Creek wildfire north of Fort Nelson has closed part of Highway 77 near the BC border with the Northwest Territories, and Roldan-Delgado said crews are waiting to see “if that fire will affect the highway more and they will take action when it does.”
Pedro-Delgado said the fire service is managing the situation as best it can with its limited resources in a season that started months earlier than usual.
“We’ve seen a pretty crazy spring season to have numbers like this,” he said. “In our world, things can change so drastically in a matter of hours that it can go from busy to quiet in a day or two.”
He said people should follow all fire bans because “the public can do their part by preventing and reporting wildfires.”
This report from The Canadian Press was first published on July 1, 2023.
