Will take ‘weeks, not days’ to contain West Kelowna fire: officials

As residents return to evacuated parts of West Kelowna, the BC Wildfire Service is stressing that the fire that caused so much distress over the last couple of weeks is still out of control, and this is not going to change anytime soon.

“We’re in this for the long haul now,” the service’s incident commander for Grouse Complex Scott Rennick said. “It’s going to be a matter of weeks now, not days, in order to get this fire to some state of containment moving forward.

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“Looking at the extended forecast for some time, we’re going to have dry conditions, later summer conditions into September, mid 20s, high 20s, potentially,” he said.

He says the fire is transitioning, and while their focus a couple weeks ago was to get it out of urban areas, particularly on the west side of Okanagan Lake, they are now dealing with a wildland fire. I

He says they are keeping an eye on the conditions in a drainage area that leads toward populated areas such as West Kelowna.

“What we’re really trying to avoid is getting fire into that area, because we could really have a combination if we have a cold front or a wind event that would come from the west and northwest,” he said. “With that lake effect, it would not put us in a good position.”