Non-essential travel to the southern Interior has been restricted as 27,000 people are under evacuation orders, around a third of them in the Kelowna area.
Tune in for ongoing coverage of the wildfire situation on CBC Radio One at 88.9 FM in Kelowna, 96.9 FM in Salmon Arm, or by using the CBC Listen app.
More than 50 structures have been fully or partially destroyed by an aggressive wildfire in West Kelowna, B.C., according to the Okanagan city’s fire chief.
Jason Brolund told a news conference Monday morning that crews are trying to systematically survey the areas hit by the McDougall Creek fire to determine the extent of the damage.
“We’re not done yet and the most damaged neighbourhoods are still to come,” he said.
Brolund said the job of tallying the damage has been challenging because some address markers were destroyed by the fire and street signs have melted, while downed power lines, ruined roads and fallen trees have made it unsafe to enter some areas.
Firefighters in West Kelowna have difficulty identifying locations
11 hours ago
Duration 1:08
West Kelowna Fire Chief Jason Brolund reported that firefighting crews are finding addresses on buildings have been burned away, if the entire building itself hadn’t already crumbled, and street signs have melted.
In one neighbourhood, he said, it looked like a hurricane had blown through.
“Trees were ripped out by their roots. The force to make that happen is incredible,” Brolund said.
But he reassured residents that a number of neighbourhoods in the city have been relatively untouched by the fire, with no structures lost.
Brolund added that as conditions have quietened in the last 24 hours, no other structures have been destroyed.
“What’s happening out there is the day-to-day grind of firefighting,” he said, applauding the work of firefighters from across the province who’ve come together to protect West Kelowna.
Video of homes burning
Some residents of West Kelowna are learning their homes are gone through unofficial channels.
Chris Erickson left his West Kelowna home Thursday as wildfire approached and the next day, he saw a photo of his home in a local newspaper.
“You see just huge flames up in the trees, and at the bottom of the photo, you could see the roof of our house,” he said.
Later, a neighbour sent him footage from a doorbell camera that confirmed the damage.
“It’s quite the experience witnessing your house engulfed in flames before it collapses in on itself,” he said from a hotel room in Merritt, B.C. “Watching that is hard.”
Chris Erickson’s home was one of more than 50 structures lost in the McDougall Creek fire in West Kelowna. Erickson watched video footage taken by his neighbour’s doorbell camera of his home in the Rose Valley neighbourhood burning to the ground. Despite losing his residence, Erickson is thanking his neighbours for their kindness and support.
Seagun Laboucane had a similar experience while scrolling through social media.
“I was sitting having dinner when I first saw … a picture of what I thought was my house on fire,” she said, adding that later footage would confirm the loss.
“It didn’t feel real.”
Firefighters working back-to-back shifts
According to Brolund, some West Kelowna firefighters are working back-to-back shifts, taking the usual calls from the fire hall at night before heading out to fight the wildfire in the morning.
He said one firefighter was scheduled to become a Canadian citizen on Monday, and will now have to participate in the ceremony by Zoom from behind the fire lines.
“What an important thing and what a massive sacrifice to make,” Brolund said.
West Kelowna fire chief emotional as he thanks crews for dedication
Jason Brolund says firefighters are working back-to-back shifts and coming back covered in black soot as they try to protect homes and bring the McDougall Creek wildfire under control.
The out-of-control McDougall Creek fire was last measured at 110 square kilometres in size, but the B.C. Wildfire Service says smoky conditions have made it difficult to get an up-to-date estimate for the fire.
A total of 9,855 properties remain on evacuation order in the area of the fire, Regional District of Central Okanagan board chair Loyal Woolridge said Monday.
Five structures were destroyed by the fire in Kelowna, while at least two or three were lost in Lake Country, a municipality north of Kelowna, the public heard Monday.
North Westside Fire Chief Ross Kotcherofski said he was not able to provide an estimate for the destruction in his jurisdiction, north of West Kelowna, but most of the structural damage has been in the Traders Cove and Lake Okanagan Resort areas. The resort was destroyed on Friday.
However, Kotcherofski said that a number of his firefighters have lost their own homes in the fire, but have remained on the front lines to help their neighbours.
Smoky skies helping wildfire fight
As the southern quarter of British Columbia is warned about the risk of particulates in the air from wildfire smoke, those battling blazes in the Central Okanagan say the smoke is helping their cause.
A special air quality statement and smoky skies bulletin is in place from Vancouver Island east to the Alberta border, as well as in the central Interior, due to smoke from hundreds of wildfires burning across the province.
An additional air quality advisory remains in place for Metro Vancouver and the Fraser Valley, warning of high concentrations of fine particulate matter in the air.
Wildfire firefighters work to put out hotspots from the McDougall Creek wildfire near homes in West Kelowna on Sunday. (Justine Boulin/CBC News)
While the amount of smoke in the air has created harmful conditions for people’s health, it’s also reducing the sun’s intensity, which is helping the fight against wildfires across the province.
“It is effectively another good day to fight fire, apart from the smoke in the air,” Jerrad Schroeder of the B.C. Wildfire Service said Monday morning.
In a long string of posts on X, formerly known as Twitter, the B.C. Wildfire Service noted Sunday that rain is in the forecast for late Monday night, which should allow firefighters to gain some ground.
However, the wildfire service also warned that tropical storm Hilary, which is causing flooding in southern California, will bring strong winds all the way up to B.C., with the potential for more extreme fire behaviour.
Fire crews ‘moving forward’ against blazes near Kelowna
Cooler temperatures helped firefighters make progress against wildfires in the Kelowna area after a volatile few days. Meanwhile, the blazes have put a major pause on the area’s tourism industry.
So far there is no official count of how many homes have been destroyed across B.C. since fire activity dramatically accelerated last week, but officials have acknowledged the damage is “significant.”
An unknown number of homes have also been destroyed in the Shuswap region east of Kamloops, where the Bush Creek East fire is now burning over 410 square kilometres around Adams Lake and Shuswap Lake.
There are more than 380 active wildfires burning across B.C. as of Monday morning, fuelled by wind, drought and hot weather that have left landscapes tinder dry.
Of those fires, 159 are deemed out of control while 14 are categorized as fires of note, meaning they are particularly visible or threatening to property.
B.C. Emergency Management Minister Bowinn Ma said there are now about 27,000 people in the province under an evacuation order and another 35,000 on evacuation alert.
“We hope that the darkest days are behind us, but the situation is still evolving and the dangers we face are still extreme,” she said in an update on Monday.
Premier David Eby announced Monday that he, Ma and Forests Minister Bruce Ralston all plan to travel to fire-affected areas on Tuesday to show that “we will be there when the crisis passes to rebuild,” and to gather information about what is needed.
Across B.C., more than 3,500 people are fighting wildland fires, and hundreds of municipal firefighters are helping to protect homes and other buildings, according to the B.C. Wildfire Service.
Another 100 Mexican firefighters and 200 from South Africa are expected to arrive this week.
Travel restrictions, advisories
The province is under a state of emergency, and travel to B.C.’s southern Interior has been restricted, preventing tourists from using hotels, motels, RV parks and other temporary accommodations in Kelowna and West Kelowna, Kamloops, Oliver, Osoyoos, Penticton and Vernon, so they can be utilized for evacuees.
Wildfires are also affecting several travel corridors through B.C. Highway 1 is closed in at least two spots: between Lytton and Hope in the Fraser Canyon, and between Chase and Sorrento in the Shuswap.
Other travel advisories:
Highway 97, in both directions, just south of Coldstream to Peachland.
Highway 97, in both directions, six kilometres north of Vernon to three kilometres south of Osoyoos.
Highway 5A, in both directions, between Old Kamloops Road and Roche Lake Road for 13 kilometres south of Kamloops.
DriveBC has a full listing of all road closures and travel advisories.
New evacuation orders for northern B.C.
On Monday evening, the Regional District of Bulkley-Nechako and the Takla First Nation issued a new evacuation order for the Germansen Landing and the 12 Mile area due to the Big Creek wildfire.
The district also issued an evacuation alert for the Manson Creek community because of the same wildfire.
Anyone placed under an evacuation order should leave the area immediately.
Evacuation centres have been set up throughout the province to assist anyone evacuating from a community under threat from a wildfire.
To find the centre closest to you, visit the EmergencyInfoBC website.
Evacuees are encouraged to register with Emergency Support Services online, whether or not they access services at an evacuation centre.
SEATTLE (AP) — Seattle Mariners right-hander Bryan Woo has not allowed a baserunner through six innings against the San Diego Padres on Wednesday night.
Woo has relied mostly on his fastball at the top of the strike zone to shut down the Padres. The closest San Diego has come to a hit was Manny Machado’s 113 mph line drive leading off the fifth inning that was grabbed by Randy Arozarena in left field with a diving catch.
Third baseman Josh Rojas also made an excellent defensive play charging a slow grounder from Xander Bogaerts and throwing him out to end the second inning.
Woo, in his second season in the majors, has struck out four. He’s thrown 64 pitches and has yet to get to a three-ball count.
NASHVILLE, Tenn. (AP) — Less than two months after the Southern Baptists’ policy arm issued an embarrassing retraction of an announcement of its leader’s firing, it gave him a strong vote of confidence this week — but with a caution against stirring unnecessary controversy.
Trustees for the Ethics & Religious Liberty Commission affirmed both their president, Brent Leatherwood, and the direction of the organization, which has long been on the vanguard of the religious right in voicing the conservative views of the nation’s largest Protestant denomination.
“We strongly affirm the ERLC under the leadership of Brent Leatherwood,” said incoming chair Scott Foshie. “The world and Southern Baptists need to hear that.”
His words echoed a formal statement issued by the trustees Wednesday after a lengthy closed-door session Tuesday. The statement acknowledged that, while the commission speaks out on numerous contentious issues where controversy is inevitable, that’s all the more reason not to stir up more controversy on nonessential issues.
Trustees acknowledged that support for the organization is wavering among individual churches, who fund almost all its budget. They supported the commission’s plan, already in the works, to create a new office to work more closely with pastors to help them better understand and guide the agency’s work.
“In a time of deep division in our culture, from polarization in our political environment, to falling trust in institutions, to the fracturing of families, the ERLC is needed now as much as ever both to serve in the public square,” the statement said.
But it urged the commission to be careful.
It said the staff needs to follow a companion set of guidelines, also issued Wednesday, which says the commission needs to base its public stances on the Bible as well as on the official faith statement and other resolutions approved by Southern Baptists at annual meetings in recent decades. The guidelines state that if advocacy on a particular issue is likely to “upset certain segments of the SBC,” the staff needs to evaluate the issue carefully — but may still speak out if it’s deemed essential.
The commission has staked out staunchly conservative stances on religious and political issues, with strong opposition to abortion and LGBTQ+ rights. Still, it has drawn the criticism of a vocal segment of the convention that wants to move the denomination even further to the right and sees it as drifting leftward.
Leatherwood has resisted calls to support the criminalization of women seeking abortion. He’s been criticized for supporting U.S. aid for Ukraine’s military defense and for supporting a Tennessee bill that would prevent access to firearms for people deemed a threat to others or themselves — an issue that is personal to Leatherwood after his children’s school was targeted in a deadly 2023 shooting.
Then in July, criticism erupted after Leatherwood issued a statement commending President Joe Biden for the “selfless act” of withdrawing from the presidential race after a dismal debate performance. Numerous voices in the Southern Baptist Convention, where overwhelmingly pro-Republican views prevail, denounced the statement, saying Biden acted not out of selflessness but out of political necessity.
Within a day, the commission’s chairman, Kevin Smith, moved to oust Leatherwood, and the agency issued a statement saying he had been removed. But after it emerged that Smith acted without a vote of the board’s executive committee, as required by bylaws, Smith resigned and the agency retracted its announcement.
Two members of the executive committee declined to comment on the episode in interviews, deferring to the agency’s strong statements in support of Leatherwood.
Even before that episode, Leatherwood recognized the problem of wavering support for the commission. At the Southern Baptists’ annual meeting in Indianapolis in June, church representatives voted down a proposal to abolish the commission entirely — but with a notable minority of voters supporting its abolition.
Those results “weren’t just disappointing, they were unacceptable,” Leatherwood said in an official address to the commission Tuesday.
“I say that not to the outrage artists and the grievance grifters who will never be on our side, who spin up political attack committees to come and throw bombs at us,” he said. “No, I’m talking to the local pastor and the everyday church member who just need to better understand our mission and the work that we do, and know that our work represents real Baptist leadership.”
He said the agency has already been taking such steps, surveying pastors and issuing lengthy guidebooks on issues they said were priorities, including election polarization and gender issues. It also issued a state-by-state guide to various abortion-related measures on November ballots.
“Our culture is not well right now,” Leatherwood said. Partisanship has been overwhelming “so many Christians,” he said. “Mistruths and conspiracy theories, they are everywhere right now.”
He urged Baptists to respond with gentleness and reason to such partisanship.
“The anxiety that people are feeling is real, but we help them understand it’s not supposed to be this way,” he said.
___
Associated Press religion coverage receives support through the AP’s collaboration with The Conversation US, with funding from Lilly Endowment Inc. The AP is solely responsible for this content.
EDMONTON – Alberta Premier Danielle Smith says she’s committed to Calgary’s multibillion-dollar Green Line light-rail transit project, but as it was originally envisioned.
Speaking to reporters on Wednesday, Smith declined to say how much her government is now willing to fund.
But she said she is concerned the line is getting shorter while its budget has ballooned from the original price tag of $4.5 billion.
Smith called the Green Line “the incredible shrinking project,” and that it needs a complete “rethink” to be more cost-effective.
“It would cost $20 billion to build that entire line at the per kilometre rate we’re seeing now. That is the kind of project that could bankrupt a city,” said Smith in Lloydminster, Sask.
“I think we just have to do it a different way.”
The premier was making her first public comments on the Green Line since Transportation Minister Devin Dreeshen announced last week the province will pull its $1.53 billion in funding from the $6.2-billion transit project if the city doesn’t change course.
The city’s current city council approved an updated, shortened line in July with an added $700 million in costs.
Calgary Mayor Jyoti Gondek has said that in light of the province’s decision, the city now can’t afford to build the line and the province needs to assume the financial risk.
Gondek has said she met with the premier earlier this week to say what the province wants won’t work. City council is set to meet next week to hear advice on how to abandon the project and offload the costs and delivery onto the province.
Smith, like Dreeshen, said the province is opposed to tunnelling underground for downtown stops as per the latest city plans. Her government also wants to see the rail line go farther into south Calgary.
Dreeshen in a recent interview, said if the city rejects the new alignment proposals, now expected from an engineering firm chosen by the province by the end of the year, the rail line will be on the shelf indefinitely.
If the city votes to try to wash its hands of the financial responsibility next week, Dreeshen suggested there’s another long battle ahead.
“Then it goes to the lawyers, and we’ll have to assess whatever they come up with at that time,” said Dreeshen in a Sept. 6 interview.
He declined to say whether the province would backstop liabilities for delayed or cancelled contracts.
To date, more than $1.4 billion has been spent on land acquisition, utility upgrades and a new fleet of rail vehicles — costs that could be tied to the existing plan.
The dispute has become highly politicized given that former Calgary mayor Naheed Nenshi became leader of the provincial NDP in June. The NDP is the Official Opposition and chief rival to Smith’s United Conservatives.
Nenshi left city hall in 2021. Dreeshen has now labelled the Green Line project the “Nenshi nightmare.” He calls Nenshi responsible for what he terms the mismanagement of the project from the start, saying it was never properly engineered.
Nenshi, in turn, has blamed Dreeshen for turning the Green Line into a political football and putting jobs at risk in the dispute.
Bill Black, head of the Calgary Construction Association, told The Canadian Press last week he doesn’t take sides on the design, but also doesn’t want to see a politicized spat sideline construction.
“It’s hard not to feel like the kids when the parents are going through a divorce, where the kids are always the collateral damage when the parents are fighting,” he said.
The federal government, which has also committed $1.53 billion, said it was taken by surprise with the Alberta government’s decision.
Federal Infrastructure Minister Sean Fraser has said Ottawa wants to work with Alberta on next steps, saying the withdrawal of provincial funding will impact thousands of jobs.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 11, 2024.
.jpg?crop=1.777xh:h;*,*&downsize=510px:*510w)
