The skies have cleared and, as promised, the sight of charred hillsides and the homes destroyed in Central Okanagan wildfires is now in plain view, turning attention to the recovery effort.
“This is a devastating loss for many and certainly our hearts go out to all those who have lost homes or had property damaged,” Doug Gilchrist, EOC director said during what’s expected to be the last live update for the Grouse Complex of wildfires.
“I certainly recognize from our flight around the area yesterday that it could have been much, much worse.”
Gilchrist said that it’s expected that a number of evacuation orders across the region should be downgraded later in the day, though he didn’t offer any insight into what that may be.
He did say that those who have lost homes will have to go online to learn more about what they face. They have not been reached out to individually.
“We have been working to get the information about damaged properties out as quickly as possible, ensuring that is accurate,” Gilchrist said.
Later today the regional district will have an area on the CORDemergency.ca website where homeowners in West Kelowna, Westbank First Nation and the regional district can look up their addresses and get the status of their property, whether it’s been damaged and when they can go home.
He said dispersing this information through a web-based model is their best option, given the volume of properties that have been damaged. As of Wednesday morning, there were 90 properties damaged in the North Westside, 84 in West Kelowna and Westbank, three in Lake Country and five in Kelowna.
Firefighters also said today, that when they talk about properties damaged in the fire, it doesn’t necessarily mean a home has been lost. In some cases it may just be partial damage to an outbuilding. In some cases, like Lake Okanagan Resort, it could be many buildings on one property.
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While recovery is the focus, the firefight is still ongoing in Kelowna, Lake Country and West Kelowna.
West Kelowna fire chief Jason Brolund said he had just finished flying over the fire and while things were looking good below, a lot of work will need to be done before everyone gets home.
“It rained last night and that’s a very positive sign,” Brolund said.
“We had about an hour of rain and almost (two) millimeters at the weather station in Rose Valley. That combined with the increased humidity and the cooler temperatures is going to be a boost for our response to this fire.”
The damage, however, may surprise people.
“Yesterday and today are the first times that we’ve seen the hills and the mountains surrounding our community and it does look pretty shocking,” Brolund said.
“Last night, once again the fire was highly visible. There was lots of smoke and there was glowing in the hills.”
That, he said, is to be expected.
“If you’re seeing smoke or small amounts of glowing within the fire’s perimeter, we’re aware of those and we have members on the ground patrolling.”
However, if you see something outside of the fire’s perimeter, or you see a significant amount of smoke or flame inside the perimeter that might indicate that a house is on fire and 911 should be called.
Brad Litke from BC Wildfire said temperatures in the Central Okanagan should remain cooler and reach a high of only 22 C with relative humidity values reaching minimums 45 to 55 per cent.
“That’s going to aid us in keeping the fire behavior low today for a little bit more stability and will allow us to make greater progress on the fire ground,” Litke said.
“The afternoon winds should be from the southwest attended 20 gusting 30 kilometers an hour.”
The public is being reminded it is both illegal and dangerous to fly a drone near firefighting operations. Flying drones near an active wildfire slows down response and can completely shut down aerial firefighting efforts.
It poses a significant safety risk to personnel, especially those operating low-flying firefighting aircraft.
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