Residents of an Okanagan neighbourhood that was hit hard by wildfires in July are banding together as they face a long road to recovery.
Dunahoo lives on Nighthawk Road in Lake Country, where the July 15 wildfire caused the most damage. Eight homes were destroyed and many more damaged.
“There’s been a couple of suppers and get-togethers at North End — it has brought us together and made us stronger,” Joanne Croom said.
Croom’s house was so badly damaged, it’s now uninhabitable. She and her husband have been forced to live in their trailer parked on their driveway.
“We wanted to be on site,” Croom said. “We’ve lived here for 20 years, and we feel comfortable here more than anywhere else.”
Croom and her husband have been told they may be out of their house for up to a year.
“The next step now is waiting for trades to come out and give us quotes, and they are very busy right now,” Croom said. “So it’s really, really hard to get them out here. With the flooding and now the fire, Kelowna is very, very busy.”
While construction activity has increased on Nighthawk Road with so many work crews around, the street is a lot quieter from a residential standpoint.
“Lots of human traffic, and people with their animals — that’s all gone,” local Don Dunahoo said. “It’s usually pretty busy between 10 and six with all the construction vehicles, but other than that, it is a ghost town.”
The cause of the July fire was determined to be arson. RCMP continue to investigate the exact cause and who may have been responsible.