Update on Joe Rich-Kelowna Fire

Officials say the Philpott Road fire in the Joe Rich area east of Kelowna remains active and the smoke will be visible.

The fire — which is believed to be human caused — is estimated at 400 hectares, up slightly from Thursday night.

No homes have been impacted, but 11-hundred residents from 474 properties remain on evacuation order.

Kevin Skrepnek from the BC Wildfire Service says they have made progress, but there’s no containment as yet.

“The fire is burning in some fairly steep terrain, with heavy timber in the area. We’re bringing additional resources in. We’re looking at area where we can utilize heavy equipment as well to put in some fire break, but wit the terrain we’re dealing with, it is a challenge,” says Skrepnek.

Skrepnek says the fire is showing rank 2 behaviour today, mostly a ground fire with smoke but not a lot of open flame, which he says could change with the weather.

“This part of the world, in the Okanagan, is a spot where we can often see erratic fire behaviour overnight, just to do with the geography in that area, but thankfully, the winds were light, the temperatures dropped, and the fire behaviour was less. We didn’t see much spread overnight,” adds Skrepnek.

Skrepnek says there were 30 new fires on Thursday, mostly lightning caused, and the Philpott Road fire was the only one that grew more than a hectare in size.

“The winds were absolutely howling, with wind speeds up to 70 km-h which contributed to quick and aggressive growth on this fire,” says Skrepnek.

Photo courtesy of Twitter