With thick smoke from the McDougall Creek wildfire choking the Central Okanagan, West Kelowna fire chief Jason Brolund gave clear answers to the public on Saturday morning.
With a dozen evacuation orders in the West Kelowna area, affecting approximately 4,500 properties, Brolund said he knows people are curious as to when they’ll be allowed to return home.
“And the answer is that we don’t know,” Brolund said during a press conference on Saturday morning.
“We are working hard to get these fires out so you can go home as quickly as possible.”
The mayor of West Kelowna, Gord Milson, chimed in, saying “Our hearts go out to those members in our community who may experience property loss.”
The McDougall Creek wildfire is currently sized at 11,000 hectares, and is now part of the Grouse complex, which includes the Walroy Lake (Kelowna, 769 hectares) and Clarke Creek (Lake Country, 174 hectares) wildfires.
Brolund says he doesn’t know how many homes have been lost, but said they’ll start counting when they stop fighting fires.
He also said that his crews were extremely challenged on Friday, including getting called out to three houses all next to each other that were on fire.
Brolund said the fires were threatening hundreds of homes above those three, and that they were expanding upwards.
“We had multiple engines involved in combatting three single-family house fires, which, on a normal day for us, is a massive operation,” said Brolund.
“At the same time our crews were fighting it on the ground, (BC Wildfire) crews were flying above in helicopters and dropping water on the same fires.
“This is unprecedented fire-fighting tactics.”
He added, “to result in a save of hundreds of homes like that, is absolutely amazing and it’s a prime example of what’s happening out there.”
Brolund also said fire department crews from across B.C. have travelled to the Central Okanagan to help battle the blaze. And on Saturday morning, he said 41 fire trucks were parked outside the main station.
“And there’s more to come,” he said. “This is truly an army.”
He also touched on the effects the fire is having on West Kelowna.
“I think it’s become evident that this event is going to leave a long-lasting scar on the community,” said Brolund. “But I’m already seeing how the community is coming together.
“I’m looking forward to the continued progress. And this scar will become a good one when it’s over.”
The fire chief also touched on the city’s new water treatment plant, along with a water outage in the Rose Valley neighbourhood.
A do not consume water order has been issued for all of Rose Valley, except the Sunnyside and Pritchard areas, which remain on a boil water notice.
The city is also implementing Stage 4 watering restrictions, which means no outdoor water use and agricultural users are asked to reduce their water use.
“Why are we doing this? We’re doing it for a couple of reasons,” said Brolund.
“In the Rose Valley area, because of the number of structures burned, the water is freely flowing from those structures now. And what’s happened is that it’s depleted the water supply.”
Brolund said the reservoirs are no longer full “and we need to conserve what little water remains in those reservoirs for firefighting purposes.”
Regarding the city’s nearly completed water treatment plant in Rose Valley, he said the fire burned over it.
“The treatment plant was saved because of the actions of firefighters from the BC Wildfire Service and all of the structural fire departments that are deployed,” said Brolund.
“Ten-thousand dollars’ worth of sprinklers and pumps that were put on that building over the last two days saved a $75 million asset.”
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