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.
Montreal Alouettes wide receiver Tyson Philpot has announced he will be out for the rest of the CFL season.
The Delta, B.C., native posted the news on his Instagram page Thursday.
“To Be Continued. Shoutout my team, the fans of the CFL and the whole city of Montreal! I can’t wait to be back healthy and write this next chapter in 2025,” the statement read.
Philpot, 24, injured his foot in a 33-23 win over the Hamilton Tiger-Cats on Aug. 10 and was placed on the six-game injured list the next week.
The six-foot-one, 195-pound receiver had 58 receptions, 779 yards and five touchdowns in nine games for the league-leading Alouettes in his third season.
Philpot scored the game-winning touchdown in Montreal’s Grey Cup win last season to punctuate a six-reception, 63-yard performance.
This report by The Canadian Press was first published Sept. 12, 2024.
MIAMI GARDENS, Fla. (AP) — Miami Dolphins quarterback Tua Tagovailoa sustained a concussion for the third time in his NFL career, leaving his team’s game Thursday night against Buffalo after running into defensive back Damar Hamlin and hitting the back of his head against the turf.
Tagovailoa remained down for about two minutes before getting to his feet and walking to the sideline after the play in the third quarter. He made his way to the tunnel not long afterward, looking into the stands before smiling and departing toward the locker room.
The Dolphins needed almost no time before announcing it was a concussion. The team said he had two during the 2022 season, and Tagovailoa was diagnosed with another concussion when he was a college player at Alabama.
Dolphins coach Mike McDaniel said Tagovailoa would get “proper procedural evaluation” and “appropriate care” on Friday.
“The furthest thing from my mind is, ‘What is the timeline?’ We just need to evaluate and just worry about my teammate, like the rest of the guys are,” McDaniel said. “We’ll get more information tomorrow and take it day by day from here.”
Some players saw Tagovailoa in the locker room after the game and said they were encouraged. Tagovailoa spoke with some players and then went home after the game, McDaniel said.
“I have a lot of love for Tua, built a great relationship with him,” said quarterback Skylar Thompson, who replaced Tagovailoa after the injury. “You care about the person more than the player and everybody in the organization would say the same thing. Just really praying for Tua and hopefully everything will come out all right.”
Tagovailoa signed a four-year, $212 million extension before this season — a deal that makes him one of the highest-paid players in the NFL — and was the NFL’s leading passer in Week 1 this season. Tagovailoa left with the Dolphins trailing 31-10, and that was the final score.
“If you know Tua outside of football, you can’t help but feel for him,” Bills quarterback Josh Allen said on Amazon following the game. “He’s a great football player but he’s an even greater human being. He’s one of the best humans on the planet. I’ve got a lot of love for him and I’m just praying for him and his family, hoping everything’s OK. But it’s tough, man. This game of football that we play, it’s got its highs and it’s got its lows — and this is one of the lows.”
Tagovailoa’s college years and first three NFL seasons were marred by injury, though he positioned himself for a big pay bump with an injury-free and productive 2023 as he led the Dolphins into the playoffs. He threw for 29 touchdowns and a league-best 4,624 yards last year.
When, or if, he can come back this season is anyone’s guess. Tagovailoa said in April 2023 that the concussions he had in the 2022 season left him contemplating his playing future. “I think I considered it for a time,” he said then, when asked if he considered stepping away from the game to protect himself.
McDaniel said it’s not his place to say if Tagovailoa should return to football. “He’ll be evaluated and we’ll have conversations and progress as appropriate,” McDaniel said.
Tagovailoa was hurt Thursday on a fourth-down keeper with about 4:30 left in the third. He went straight ahead into Hamlin and did not slide, leading with his right shoulder instead.
Hamlin was the player who suffered a cardiac arrest after making a tackle during a Monday night game in January 2023 at Cincinnati, causing the NFL to suspend a pivotal game that quickly lost significance in the aftermath of a scary scene that unfolded in front of a national television audience.
Tagovailoa wound up on his back, both his hands in the air and Bills players immediately pointed at him as if to suggest there was an injury. Dolphins center Aaron Brewer quickly did the same, waving to the sideline.
Tagovailoa appeared to be making a fist with his right hand as he lay on the ground. It was movement consistent with something that is referred to as the “fencing response,” which can be common after a traumatic brain injury.
Tagovailoa eventually got to his feet. McDaniel grabbed the side of his quarterback’s head and gave him a kiss on the cheek as Tagovailoa departed. Thompson came into the game to take Tagovailoa’s spot.
“I love Tua on and off the football field,” Bills edge Von Miller said. “I’m a huge fan of him. I can empathize and sympathize with him because I’ve been there. I wish him the best.”
Tagovailoa’s history with concussions — and how he has since worked to avoid them — is a huge part of the story of his career, and now comes to the forefront once again.
He had at least two concussions during the 2022 season. He was hurt in a Week 3 game against Buffalo and cleared concussion protocol, though he appeared disoriented on that play but returned to the game.
The NFL later changed its concussion protocol to mandate that if a player shows possible concussion symptoms — including a lack of balance or stability — he must sit out the rest of the game.
Less than a week later, in a Thursday night game at Cincinnati, Tagovailoa was concussed on a scary hit that briefly knocked him unconscious and led to him being taken off the field on a stretcher.
His second known concussion of that season came in a December game against Green Bay, and he didn’t play for the rest of the 2022 season. After that, Tagovailoa began studying ways where he may be able to fall more safely and protect himself against further injury — including studying jiu-jitsu.
“I’m not worried about anything that’s out of my hands,” McDaniel said. “I’m just worried about the human being.”
NEW YORK (AP) — When her husband turns on the television to hear news about the upcoming presidential election, that’s often a signal for Lori Johnson Malveaux to leave the room.
It can get to be too much. Often, she’ll go to a TV in another room to watch a movie on the Hallmark Channel or BET. She craves something comforting and entertaining. And in that, she has company.
While about half of Americans say they are following political news “extremely” or “very” closely, about 6 in 10 say they need to limit how much information they consume about the government and politics to avoid feeling overloaded or fatigued, according to a new survey from the Associated Press-NORC Center for Public Affairs Research and USAFacts.
Make no mistake: Malveaux plans to vote. She always does. “I just get to the point where I don’t want to hear the rhetoric,” she said.
The 54-year-old Democrat said she’s most bothered when she hears people on the news telling her that something she saw with her own eyes — like the Jan. 6, 2021, attack on the U.S. Capitol — didn’t really happen.
“I feel like I’m being gaslit. That’s the way to put it,” she said.
Sometimes it feels like ‘a bombardment’
Caleb Pack, 23, a Republican from Ardmore, Oklahoma, who works in IT, tries to keep informed through the news feeds on his phone, which is stocked with a variety of sources, including CNN, Fox News, The Wall Street Journal and The Associated Press.
Yet sometimes, Pack says, it seems like a bombardment.
“It’s good to know what’s going on, but both sides are pulling a little bit extreme,” he said. “It just feels like it’s a conversation piece everywhere, and it’s hard to escape it.”
Media fatigue isn’t a new phenomenon. A Pew Research Center survey conducted in late 2019 found roughly two in three Americans felt worn out by the amount of news there is, about the same as in a poll taken in early 2018. During the 2016 presidential campaign, about 6 in 10 people felt overloaded by campaign news.
But it can be particularly acute with news related to politics. The AP-NORC/USAFacts poll found that half of Americans feel a need to limit their consumption of information related to crime or overseas conflicts, while only about 4 in 10 are limiting news about the economy and jobs.
It’s easy to understand, with television outlets like CNN, Fox News Channel and MSNBC full of political talk and a wide array of political news online, sometimes complicated by disinformation.
“There’s a glut of information,” said Richard Coffin, director of research and advocacy for USAFacts, “and people are having a hard time figuring out what is true or not.”
Women are more likely to feel they need to limit media
In the AP-NORC poll, about 6 in 10 men said they follow news about elections and politics at least “very” closely, compared to about half of women. For all types of news, not just politics, women are more likely than men to report the need to limit their media consumption, the survey found.
White adults are also more likely than Black or Hispanic adults to say they need to limit media consumption on politics, the poll found.
Kaleb Aravzo, 19, a Democrat, gets a baseline of news by listening to National Public Radio in the morning at home in Logan, Utah. Too much politics, particularly when he’s on social media sites like TikTok and Instagram, can trigger anxiety and depression.
“If it pops up on my page when I’m on social media,” he said, “I’ll just scroll past it.”
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Sanders reported from Washington. David Bauder writes about media for the AP. Follow him at http://x.com/dbauder.
The AP poll of 1,019 adults was conducted July 29-August 8, 2024, using a sample drawn from NORC’s probability-based AmeriSpeak Panel, which is designed to be representative of the U.S. population. The margin of sampling error for all respondents is plus or minus 4.0 percentage points.
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