snoboy Posted August 23, 2003 Posted August 23, 2003 30,000 evacuated from Kelowna (just north of Skaha) at last count! Quote
murraysovereign Posted August 23, 2003 Posted August 23, 2003 Approximately 200 homes destroyed overnight in Kelowna . Couple of pretty nice wineries in that part of the city, also. Okanagan Mountain Provincial Park has been completely burned over, Myra Canyon section of the Kettle Valley Railway cycling trail is next in line - all those beautiful old trestles and bridges don't stand a chance if the winds kick up again this evening . Quote
Fence_Sitter Posted August 23, 2003 Posted August 23, 2003 i have an ex in kelowna... she is kicked out and i was gonna go visit before going back to school Quote
murraysovereign Posted August 23, 2003 Posted August 23, 2003 Here's NASA's view - Kelowna is the biggest fire, in the lower left quadrant. Somewhere left of the active fire front are the Boulder Fields and Kelowna Crags, both completely burnt through the other day. The northern edge of the fire is burning within city limits, taking out subdivisions:  http://www.pep.bc.ca/operations/BC_Fires_NASA-3.jpg  But just for the record - much of Canada is, in fact, NOT on fire at this time. Squamish, for instance, is bone dry but not yet actively combusting. So you don't need to stay away, just be extremely careful if you come up. And maybe fill all your water bottles before you leave home - we're running low. Quote
nolanr Posted August 24, 2003 Posted August 24, 2003 Crowsnest Pass area was burning pretty bad about a week ago, driving thru I saw 5 or 6 bombers and a couple of choppers. Never seen such aggressive firefighting before. Quote
Greg_W Posted August 25, 2003 Posted August 25, 2003 There's also a pretty bad Pine Beetle infestation going on North of where the fires are and it seems to be spreading into Alberta (is that the next one East?). Bummer. Quote
murraysovereign Posted August 25, 2003 Posted August 25, 2003 Yeah, there's bad Pine Beetle all through the Interior, including the area of the Kelowna fire. All that standing dead-wood makes for pretty good fuel, it seems. Of course, if the forests were allowed to burn more frequently, we wouldn't get such bad beetle infestations, either. The Okanagan forests historically burned about every 5 to 15 years on average, but since the invention of fire suppression, we've managed to reduce that to about once every 50 - 75 years. So instead of frequent, small, low-intensity fires keeping the fuel supply from accumulating, we now get these massive, once-in-a-lifetime, "Oh My Gawd" conflagrations that consume everything in their path. They call it "forest management" or some such nonsense. Â As for the beetle-killed trees, the wood acquires a kind of mottled purply-bluish appearance, and some log-home builders are finding that people will pay extra to have their homes built of these logs because they like the effect. I've seen photos of a couple, and they do look pretty cool. Quote
LYleK Posted August 25, 2003 Posted August 25, 2003 I went and watched the action Friday night from across the lake, wicked... Â All Kelowna fire pics here: http://www.castanet.net/firepics/ Quote
Necronomicon Posted August 25, 2003 Posted August 25, 2003 I spent last week in Penticton. What a scene! It went from smelling like a forest fire to smelling like burnt refridgerators. The water bombers flew overhead non-stop. You could see the houses burning...pretty sad. Meanwhile, the Ironman Triathlon is going on and all the hotels are "No Vacancy", with 30,000 local evacuees staying at secondary schools. Retarded. (For the science geeks like myself, the fire had a HUGE plume of water vapor condensing over the top of it. Way cool.) Quote
bunglehead Posted August 25, 2003 Posted August 25, 2003 OMIGOD!!! That Montana pic is CRAZY!!!! Quote
Mer Posted August 25, 2003 Posted August 25, 2003 I was up on a peak outside Revelstoke this weekend. Though the province is not actually on fire, it is smouldering a bit. I could see seven individual fires burning, all of them small enough to be left burning while they deal with the bigger ones. Â Shame about the crags outside Kelowna. The boulder fields were particularly unique. I wonder what that intense heat does to the hardware? Quote
murraysovereign Posted August 25, 2003 Posted August 25, 2003 Here's a link to the BC Forest Service, detailing road closures in each district. This particular site is for Squamish Forest District, but with a little nosing around you should be able to find every district in the province:  http://www.for.gov.bc.ca/dsq/Publications/Announcements/RoadClosureBulletin.htm  Feels like we could get some thunder/lightning this evening, which is not what we need. Hopefully there'll be about a foot of rain come with it. Quote
EWolfe Posted August 25, 2003 Author Posted August 25, 2003 Any news on how Skaha has been effected, if at all? I know intense heat can exfoliate the rock, removing old holds (but replacing them with new ones?). Too bad about the Kelowna area - hope folks get some relief soon. Â Sorry about the title to this thread, I was attempting to be humorous about having Squamish to myself... Quote
murraysovereign Posted August 26, 2003 Posted August 26, 2003 So far Skaha is OK. There's a large fire just south of there at Vaseux Lake, but it's about 15 miles away, and seems to be heading more east than north so isn't an immediate threat to the Bluffs area. Â Here's a link to the thermal map of that fire, so you can play along at home: http://alt.pep.sfu.ca/operations/CTL-VaseuxLake_Fire Quote
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