Rain was supposed to fall on the Okanagan on Saturday afternoon. Instead, lightning raked the region, sparking more wildfires.
“There have been multiple fire starts in the Kamloops Fire Centre, and these mainly have been in the Penticton fire zone,” B.C. Wildfire Service (BCWS) information officer Brenna Ward told Global News. “There is a cluster of five new starts approximately 20 kilometres west of Peachland, and then there are two new starts in the Penticton zone, within one kilometre of the U.S. border.”
Ward added that most of the “starts are estimated to be spot-sized.”
A spot-sized fire, according to BCWS, is listed at .009 hectares.
According to the real-time website lightningmaps.org, no fewer than 65 lightning strikes took place between the Coquihalla Highway and Highway 97, from Salmon Arm to Osoyoos. And that was just between 3 p.m. and 4 p.m.
To the east of Okanagan Lake, there were 16 lightning strikes during that same time frame.
The website tracks lighting strikes in real time. Each lightning strike leaves a dot on a map, with the dot staying on the map for approximately an hour before disappearing.
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