20,000(+) flee Kelowna (BC, Canada) homes (due to forest fire)

[Wonk]

note to mods, the article disagrees with its own headline, re: 27,000 vs 20,000 evacuated. I'd guess it's even more by now. CBC Newsworld was just showing some neighborhoods burning.

(snip)

The Friday night evacuation meant some 27,000 residents -- more than one in four city residents -- have now been forced from their homes by the fierce Okanagan Mountain Park fire, which was last calculated to cover at least 18,000 hectares.

more...

on edit: CBC NewsWorld Hourly News (RealPlayer link)

even more links

[Spazito]

1. There are now 30 thousand evacuated and..

another 8 thousand on standby, possibly hundreds of homes burned overnight. 4-5 suburbs hit by the fire. It is an awful, awful situation with no help re weather in sight!

Another city, Penticton is in danger if the wind shifts from the south to the north, which it may do today.

[glarius]

2. In our family we have often said how lucky Canada is

We don't have yearly hurricanes, floods, earthquakes, droughts etc....We have cold winters with occasionally ice storms but we have been virtually untouched by acts of terrorism and life has been very good for most of us most of the time....But this year has been a stinker...SARS...mad cow disease (both of which were much less of a threat than reported internationally but devastated the tourist business and the beef farmers)...the power blackout and these terrible forest fires in the west...Have I left anything out?....Perhaps we've had our turn now and things will get better....
These are just my musings.....

[Newsjock]

3. CBC: "Hundreds of homes" destroyed

watching live coverage on Newsworld.

The pictures are chilling, as I remember my last visit to Kelowna last year.

For those who think B.C. is all lush Northwest rainforest, the southern interior is something else entirely. In some ways, Kelowna looks a lot more like, say, Boise or Missoula or Billings -- it's an arid mountain setting that many Americans don't normally associate with Canada.

[AntiCoup2K4]

4. Okanagan Valley is always on the dry side...

Under normal circumstances, they boast about the fact that they get around 300 sunny days a year, due to being in the "rainshadow" of the Cascades. But this year has been even dryer than usual.

Agriculture is big business there, both the legal and otherwise (BC Bud). Was just over there a couple weeks ago and the temperature was pretty close to 100 degrees for several days. The fires had already devastated the area north of Kamloops which is about a couple hours north of the Kelowna/Penticton area.

Beautiful country..... very sad to see this sort of thing happening up there :evilfrown:

[Canuck55]

5. Orderly chaos in K-town here...

As someone who received an Evacuation Order last night i must say it's surreal here. Saturday morning is nothing but blue sky, if you didn't know it was raging over the hill you wouldn't even guess there was a fire. It was, however, upgraded last night to a Class 6 Firestorm. This is our dryest year ever here, next closest for lack of precip. was 1920. Actual Evacuation Order's are indeed at 30,000, with 7000 more on Alert.

If you have friends and family in the area these sites have some links to some contact numbers, local coverage and local radio streamed online:

http://www.silk.fm/silk/firewatch/

http://chbc.com/

Contact # for evacuee register confirmation: Red Cross 1-888-350-6070

[glarius]

6. From Ontario we send you our prayers and hopes that it will soon be

under control...:hi:

[Spazito]

7. From a B.C.er in the Kootenays...

my thoughts and prayers are with all those in the area of the fire, be safe!

[newyawker99]

8. Hi Canuck55!!

Welcome to DU!! :toast: