Aug 11, 2015
We have a fire…..
…in the hills out back of us, like right there. If it came down the hill we would have to evacuate but it is burning up the hill. It has been burning for 2 hours now. Lots of activity with helicopters dropping off ground crew, planes dropping retardant and a helicopter dropping water.
At one point it was a rank 2 to rank 3 with trees involved but all the air support has dropped back down to a ground fire.
Sorry I missed the entire retardant drop but got the tail end.
This guy came to the fire with water.
Then flew over to our lake.
Where he proceeded to suck up more water right in front of us. He was very very close to us and flew directly over our roof top. I could see the pilot most clearly.
A much clearer shot by Colin.
Back to the fire to drop the water, again by Colin.
The brown in the foreground is my neighbors roof, just to show you how close we are.
The fire is affecting the flight path to Kelowna International Airport. One flight has been turned back to Vancouver. However a few other helicopters brought in some firefighting ground crew which have made a big difference.
Latest online update as of 10 minutes ago.
While it has been exciting to watch all of this up close, I would rather forgo this type of excitement.
This flew over twice this afternoon but I don’t think it was involved in the fire.
The entire day has already been smoke filled yet the forecast said mostly sunny. Not good for our business of photography.
Meanwhile water restrictions become even more severe. Those who live on the Sunshine Coast are now prohibited from watering anything unless they use left over dishwater or bathwater. Here in Kelowna we are a bit better off with watering being allowed 2 days per week. I have read that this is Alaska’s second worst fire season and of course we all know how poorly California is doing not to mention other US states.
How long can we go on like this? Will there be anything left?
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Excellent pics, but hope things clear up for you and the fires subside soon.
It was exciting to be a part of the action.
Wow that’s scary! So glad it’s moving in the opposite direction!
We were too.
It makes you very nervous when it is that close!
Of the 3 fires we have had close by this was the closet. The fire crew did a fabulous job and were there all night. Totally under control now. A lesson was learned way back in 2003 when the city burned because the response was not fast enough. Now they move very fast.
scary when fire gets that close. hope the smoke clears up soon.
It was scary as we could see everything without binoculars. That fire has been stopped with no further smoke. However we are smoked out from the Washington state fires.
Almost funny that you can pump bath water and kitchen water but rvers can’t dump grey water. I know rv tanks hold it for awhile and it gets stinky but still . . .
I agree, why not be able to dump the grey.
Yikes, glad that fire is under control now. We can still handwater after 7pm our bushes trees flowers and veggies. They don’t have a level 4 water restriction in the town bylaws and it rained really hard here last weekend so the fire risk went down a little.
Good to know you can still handwater. I was thinking about you.