Homes have been lost to the wildfire within the City of Kelowna.
During a press conference Saturday morning, Kelowna Fire Chief Travis Whiting confirmed homes were destroyed Friday by the fire that's been burning above the Glenmore area.
“It's unbelievable watching the work that's being done by our firefighters and the amount of protection being put in place,” Whiting said.
“Coming into today, there's still a lot of fire activity in the City of Kelowna. The fire moving north is being worked on in conjunction with assets from Lake Country, up towards the north end of Lake Country.
“On the south end of the fire we have a bunch of assets being put in as far as structural protection and sprinkler systems into the Wilden area to ensure we have that whole area hardened if that fire turns back on us in the coming days.”
He noted that both fixed-wing aircraft and helicopters from the BC Wildfire Service are helping in the the firefight as well.
The strong winds that drove the rapid growth of all the fires in the region over the past 24 hours have subsided somewhat, but Whiting said the danger is not over.
“As we move into these next few days, I want to make sure people don't underestimate that because we don't see the same level of winds, we still see a significant amount of fire activity," he said.
“We're going to be dug in deep working hard, over the coming days, weeks, to protect all assets that we can.”
While Whiting confirmed homes have been lost to the fire, he would not say how many homes have been destroyed. He did say the structural loss has been contained to a single area.
