On pins and pine needles
Whatever happened with the fire fight Friday night, Penticton could hardly have been better prepared. Crews and equipment from departments as far away as Vancouver Island were stationed throughout neighbourhoods along the southeast boundary of the city, where the 2,000hectare Christie Mountain wildfire was at its most active and being driven by wind gusts in the range of 60 km/h.
Kerri Trip said a handful of fire trucks arrived near her home on Evergreen Drive – one of 3,700 properties in Penticton under an evacuation order – around 10 a.m. Personnel
then began testing fire hydrants and checking backyards for hazards.
Residents of the neighbourhood, which is perched on a steep hillside adjacent to Skaha Bluffs Provincial Park, were told to put away flammable items like umbrellas, propane tanks and seat cushions.
“They just told us they were checking things out and not to worry,’” recalled Trip.
Her family’s RV was packed up and ready to go just in case the evacuation alert became an order.
“What do you do? You live in an interface area and you know the risk when you move in,” said Trip.
Officials warned in advance the heavy winds had the potential to push the fire into Penticton.
But a team of heli-tankers working from Skaha Lake appeared able to deal with any flare-ups as they happened during the wind storm, and the fire didn’t make any significant progress towards the city. By early evening, the winds had calmed considerably.
The most recent update available from the BC Wildfire Service as of press deadline at 7 p.m. was issued mid-afternoon and noted just that the winds had led to “an increase in fire behaviour in certain areas where the slope and wind align.”
Penticton fire Chief Larry Watkinson told a noon-hour press conference that 110 firefighters and 60 pieces of equipment from visiting departments were being stationed throughout the evacuation zone in places like Evergreen Drive to deal with any spot fires ignited by flying embers carried aloft by the winds.
Members of the BC Wildfire Service also set up elaborate sprinkler systems to increase humidity in parts of the interface area, including the Upper Carmi, Wiltse, Pineview and Valleyview neighbourhoods.
Just a single home had been lost to the fire as of Friday afternoon.
It was located in the Heritage Hills subdivision on the east side of Skaha Lake about halfway between Penticton and Okanagan Falls.
The neighbourhood and others near it, totalling 319 properties in all, are under an evacuation order issued Tuesday about three hours after the fire started.
Within 24 hours, the fire had spread through the hills all along the east side of Skaha Lake, which is 12 kilometres long.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation.
Environment Canada has issued an airquality for the South Okanagan as a result of wildfire smoke, some of which is coming from a massive blaze about 60 kilometres away just south of the Canada-U.S. border near Osoyoos.
The so-called Palmer fire was pegged at 4,500 hectares as of Friday evening by the Washington State Department of Natural Resources, which said it was burning approximately eight kilometres south of the border.