"Several” homes have been destroyed by the wildfire in Lake Country's Okanagan Centre area, while others have been partially damaged.
Lake Country Fire Chief Darren Lee provided an update on the situation in Lake Country during Sunday morning's press conference, noting the district has made out better than their neighbours in Kelowna and West Kelowna. But the fight continues Sunday.
“We got a little more stable last night, we're definitely not out of the woods,” Lee said. “We'll continue to 'harden' around the structures.
“Through the efforts and the changing weather conditions, the winds lightening up, we've had a lot of success and I'm really grateful for all that effort. We're making the best of this opportunity by throwing a ton of resources at this fire today ... this is the day to really make some good progress.”
He noted that while “several structures” in the Okanagan Centre area have been destroyed by the fire, he said there was no impacted homes overnight.
“By and large, we just didn't experience the same firefight that we saw in West Kelowna and on Westside Road, due to the changing wind conditions,” Lee said. “So while it was tough and arduous, I count ourselves very lucky with weather.”
He added the fire had started in Okanagan Centre Friday morning, and ran uphill from there.
“You had a spot fire start in Okanagn Centre and then it runs uphill rapidly and impacts the backdoors of homes along Okanagan Centre, Nighthawk and Hare Road. So some homes were damaged in there but I don't believe we have any total losses [there],” Lee said.
“I do know of some large damage down in Okanagan Centre ... that part of the fire is still very unstable so I don't know what's under immediate threat.”
Lee added the southern edge of the Lake Country fire is only about a kilometre or two from the northern edge of the fire burning in the McKinley area.
This was the first press conference Lee has been able to attend this weekend, as he said he was “pretty busy” on the fire line Saturday. He noted that some of his crew have been forced out of their homes.
“We have people living at the fire hall while their families are evacuated. There are some RVs in the fire hall parking lot, there's tents in some classrooms and things like that,” he said. “We're making it work.”
He became emotional when he began speaking about his colleagues.
“It's been a long few days,” he said as he worked to collect himself. “I just want to congratulate our firefighters. For thousands of years, just regular people step up to be warriors to protect their villages, protect their neighbours. And there are people up there working 36-hour, 48-hour shifts and they take an absolute beating.
“They know their families are being evacuated while they're trying to defend their neighbour's home, and they just keep going. They work under incredibly dangerous conditions.”
