WATCH: Ted Chernecki with a recap of the fire situation across the southern Okanagan and Boundary regions
A historic fire season in B.C. may have reached a peak in the last few days.
Already over $200 million has been spent fighting fires across the province – but the last 72 hours saw a new peak for number of people under evacuation order at one time this year.
Over 1000 people in Rock Creek, Westbridge, Oliver, and the Kettle River Provincial Park were forced to leave their homes and campgrounds, as flames got closer to densely populated areas of B.C. than they have all year.
Here’s a visual look at at the story unfolded.
On Thursday, August 13, a fire just north of Rock Creek quickly grew from four hectares to 750 in a matter of hours.
One of the places it spread was to Kettle River Provincial Park, where hundreds of campers were forced to leave with only the shirts on their backs.
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Hundreds of people were forced to evacuate to Lumby and Kelowna. But the epicentre of evacuation efforts has been Midway, a town of 600 people, where over 500 evacuees were sent on Thursday.
On Friday, August 14, the Rock Creek fire continued to grow. But lightning strikes throughout the southern Okanagan caused several fires close to other towns – including two next to Oliver
As day turned to night, the two fires spread rapidly along the hillside to the west of town, with high winds creating dramatic images – and forcing the evacuation of 280 homes in the town of 6,000 people.
By daytime, it was clear that while the fire got very close to many properties and vineyards, the town had escaped with only minimal damage
Attention has once again turned to the Rock Creek fire, now over 35 square kilometres hectares in size. The total amount of property destroyed hasn’t been released yet – but photos seen so far from the area don’t look encouraging
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