Gorman Brothers Mill in West Kelowna feeling the heat

The forecast shows nothing but hot, dry conditions for the next little while and that’s the last thing workers at Gorman Brothers Mill in West Kelowna want to see.

A spokesperson said the mill is running out of inventory and if the rain doesn’t come soon, it will be forced to shut down operations.

Nick Arkle, said the mill has about two-and-a-half weeks left of inventory. He says once that inventory runs out, it will be forced to lay off workers.

“Not permanent layoffs of course. It would be until we start getting logs back into our inventory,” Arkle said. “We have a lot of young people, young families and people of that age tend to be living pay cheque to pay cheque. They’ve got mortgages to pay, so we’re trying to prevent that as much as possible.”

Arkle said loggers have already begun to curtail their hours of operation in the bush because of the fire threat.