Top Results For: okanagan forest task force

From a home with walls packed with stuffed animals to thousands of pounds of diapers dumped in the woods, here are a few offbeat B.C. stories that caught our eye in 2024.

As of Thursday, four of the province's 34 water basins were in Level 5 drought conditions: Fort Nelson, the Bulkley Valley, West Vancouver Island and East Vancouver Island.

The fire has now grown to 40 hectares, fueled by warm temperatures and winds.

PEACHLAND, B.C. - Warrant Officer Dan Lamoureux was in a Buffalo search-and-rescue plane almost 300 metres above British Columbia's Okanagan Valley when he spotted a tangled mess of metal in a patch of broken trees.

PEACHLAND, B.C. - Tilman Hainle lost his boyhood home in the vicious wildfire that swept down a mountainside near this lakeside Okanagan community Sunday, but Canada lost a piece of history.

<p>The strong winds that sent a fire barrelling towards this lakefront community in British Columbia's Okanagan proved too much for firefighters attempting to keep the blaze away from homes, with gusts of wind acting like flame throwers and destroying four houses.</p> <br />

VANCOUVER - It was a dry, hot Sunday afternoon, with winds whipping through British Columbia's Okanagan Valley at speeds as high as 60 kilometres an hour, when a lone RCMP officer found himself staring at fire in a ditch along the highway into the lakeside community of Peachland.

VANCOUVER - It was a dry, hot Sunday afternoon, with winds whipping through British Columbia's Okanagan Valley at speeds as high as 60 kilometres an hour, when a lone RCMP officer found himself staring at fire in a ditch along the highway into the lakeside community of Peachland.

It was a dry, hot Sunday afternoon, with winds whipping through British Columbia's Okanagan Valley at speeds as high as 60 kilometres an hour, when a lone RCMP officer found himself staring at fire in a ditch along the highway into the lakeside community of Peachland.

Former Falkland RCMP officer Milan Ilic took the stand as the civil lawsuit he launched against the federal and provincial governments, nearly six years ago, went to trial.

A Kelowna, B.C., Mountie is facing a third lawsuit alleging police brutality, but the RCMP is offering a different version of events.

"Some of these hazards include downed power lines, unstable structures, dangerous trees, equipment and debris in the area and hazardous materials," O'Rourke said. 

The restrictions, first implemented Saturday, will remain in effect for West Kelowna, while officials are still urging people to stay away from Lake Country and the North Shuswap.

The top stories of the year range from residential school discoveries to storms to fires to vaccine mandates and COVID-19 protocols.

The most serious fires are burning between Peachland and Summerland.

British Columbia is home to thousands of news stories every year. Here are some of the more interesting stories that took place in 2023.

The Okanagan Forest Task Force (OFTF) has cleaned up two sites since the group started its effort at the end of August and a third cleanup effort is planned for Nov. 5, according to OFTF spokesperson Kane Blake.

Firefighters rushed to the rental building at 296 Maple St. to discover flames shooting through the roof.

Relentless forest fires burning across British Columbia may be the new normal, Premier Christy Clark warned as she stood not far from a raging fire that threatened homes in her own riding.

An encampment that had taken over the woods near the end of Bartley Road in West Kelowna for more than a year was recently cleared.