Monday, 2003 August 25 - Page A1
'Get out! Get out now!'
The Okanagan Valley resembles a war zone with charred forests, licking flames and tired firefighters.
By Mark Hume
OKANAGAN VALLEY -- On a weekend that made some wonder if the end of the world were coming, when a series of forest fires raced out of control from one end of the Okanagan Valley to another and lightning crashed above Kelowna's burning suburbs, there was heroism and fear everywhere.
Racing along the ragged edge of three fires that were burning from Okanagan Falls to Kelowna, and crossing behind the lines into what fire crews are calling the war zone, a 32-hour tour presented a jumble of startling images.
Outside Okanagan Falls, where a fire roared up from the shores of Vaseux Lake, storming a cliff 50 metres high within seconds, an RCMP officer sped along a country road, shouting frantically from her patrol car at people: "Get out! Get out now!"
Full story:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/Art...ront/TopStories
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Monday, 2003 August 25 - Page A1
Stalked by an inferno
By Paul Sullivan
British Columbia is burning.
It's the worst fire season in 50 years. So says the Premier, who declared a state of emergency Aug. 2, and it only gets hotter.
The numbers are staggering. There are 825 fires burning in the province right now, more than 600 of them in the Kamloops/Kelowna area. Thousands of hectares have burned, and hundreds of homes have been razed. Thousands of people on the southeast edge of Kelowna have been evacuated. The 10,000-hectare Okanagan Mountain Park has been consumed. It has cost a record $170-million to fight this season's fires, and this season is far from over. As this is written, there are a few sprinkles of rain in the forecast, but also thundershowers and the threat of lightning. But the forecast also calls for more sunny, hot, dry weather, at least until Labour Day.
Full story:
http://www.globeandmail.com/servlet/Articl...National/Canada
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Monday, 2003 August 25 - Page A1
Kelowna counts the cost
Raging forest fires destroy hundreds of homes, leave others unscathed as 3,000 allowed to return - for now
By Jane Armstrong
KELOWNA, B.C. -- For the lucky ones, there was relief such as they've never felt. But hundreds of others left a Kelowna church grim-faced and in tears, clutching maps that delivered final proof that their homes had been destroyed by a forest fire.
City officials summoned more than 600 people to a downtown United Church yesterday afternoon, two days after a forest fire raced though this Okanagan city, razing 244 houses and driving more than 20,000 people from their homes.
Yesterday, calm winds and lower temperatures gave firefighters some leeway as they battled the blaze, which now covers nearly 190 square kilometres. No new damage has been reported since Friday's night's unprecedented destruction.
Full story:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/Art...ront/TopStories
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Monday, 2003 August 25 - Page A4
Tony homes incinerated by voracious Kelowna fire
Only way officials could tabulate damage was to count neighbourhood's driveways
By Jane Armstrong
KELOWNA, B.C. -- In the smoking rubble of a once-grand Kelowna neighbourhood is the storyline of a forest fire that raced up a wooded hillside and tore into a subdivision.
It danced across lawns and swerved from one side of the street to the other, devouring some homes, sparing others.
On winding Westridge Drive, the half-million-dollar houses that line the east side of the street are intact. Across the road, a string of houses are gone, incinerated by a firestorm that roared through Kelowna's southern hills Friday night, destroying 244 homes.
Fire officials had to count driveways Saturday morning to tabulate the damage.
Full story:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/Art...National/Canada
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Monday, 2003 August 25 - Page A6
Chrétien visits fire site, lauds efforts 'of the people'
Prime Minister promises aid for residents hit by weekend of devastating wildfires
By Mark Hume
KELOWNA, B.C. -- After flying in a military helicopter over the suburbs where 244 homes were destroyed by a forest fire over the weekend, Prime Minister Jean Chrétien promised disaster relief and praised people for their courage.
"
I'm amazed by the spirit of the people," Mr. Chrétien said after touring a temporary housing centre and a firehall.
He said the scenes of devastation along Kelowna's southeastern edge startled him.
"
It's so big," he said of the Okanagan Mountain fire, which burned its way into Kelowna's subdivisions after consuming nearly 20,000 hectares of forest. "
And it's so unpredictable". We flew over areas where two dozen houses were destroyed and two or three stood up and they were a few hundred feet away.
"
The forest has been gone. Everything. It must have been a terrible thing."
Full story:
http://www.theglobeandmail.com/servlet/Art...National/Canada
More:
http://www.canada.com/national/features/fi...10-E0DBC7E15CCE
More:
http://www.canada.com/national/features/fires/
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Monday, 2003 August 25
Evacuees' despair turns into anger
Brian Hutchinson
National Post
KELOWNA, B.C. - This is either the aftermath, or the calm before another terrifying firestorm. The uncertainty has pushed this city's inhabitants, one-quarter of whom are now evacuees, to the brink of nervous breakdown.
Fires still burn around Kelowna. They are persistent blazes, fuelled by tonnes of felled timber, dead grass and towering Ponderosa pines that combust like dried twigs soaked in gasoline.
Flames lick the high ridges behind the city, to the east, north, and south, and continue to creep around the scene of Friday's mass destruction, near the affluent south Kelowna suburb of Mission, where about 245 homes were obliterated. Incinerated.
Full story:
http://www.nationalpost.com/home/story.htm...F3-46A5A8986ACE
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Fire-ravaged B.C. to get aid
Governments will 'help the people,' Chrétien promises
Thousands allowed to return home as firefighters make gains
Daniel Girard
Western Canada Bureau
KELOWNA, B.C.—Prime Minister Jean Chrétien offered weary residents moral support — and federal dollars to rebuild — after flying over the fire-ravaged Okanagan Valley.
"
We will find the money," Chrétien said after a helicopter flight over parts of the massive Okanagan Mountain Park fire, which has destroyed more than 240 homes here.
"
When we have a disaster we don't say: 'We don't have the money,'" he said, likening it to the Saguenay or Winnipeg floods or the ice storm that hit Quebec and eastern Ontario. "
We have to face that reality."
Full story:
http://www.torontostar.com/NASApp/cs/Conte...id=970599119419
