(Photo credit: COSAR)

By Corey Fischer

Six incidents

Search and rescue kept busy on long weekend

Jul 4, 2023 | 5:30 PM

It was a busy long weekend for Central Okanagan Search and Rescue, attending to six incidents including helping to evacuate residents during the Knox Mountain wildfire.

The volunteer team also rescued two paddleboarders who got “blown down the lake,”  and rescued an injured ATV rider in the Greystokes area.

Here is the full list of incidents as provided by COSAR:

1. It started early Saturday morning with a call to assist the Kelowna RCMP in locating a missing swimmer in city park.  That call had a positive outcome as our members were arriving on scene.

2. Saturday afternoon, COSAR was called out to assist the Kelowna RCMP during the fire on Knox Mountain.  The RCMP and 22 COSAR members worked together in performing tactical evacuations around Knox Mountain and letting residences know about any evacuation alerts in other areas close to Knox mountain.

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3. COSAR also had their boat team on the water clearing an area so the helicopters were able to obtain water to assist in the fire fight without interference from curious boaters. COSAR would also like to thank the public boaters for clearing the area when asked.

3.5 On the way back to the marina the boat team rescued two female paddleboarders that had been blown down the lake and were trying to get back to Paul’s Tomb walking along the shoreline.

4. At 6 p.m. Saturday, COSAR was called to rescue an injured ATV rider in the Greystokes area.  Ten COSAR members were pulled away from the fire and sent to assist in recovering the injured rider.  A helicopter was called in and two medically trained members flew to area to provide medical aid while a ground team was deployed with ATVs and a UTV in case the helicopter was unable to evacuate the injured person due to darkness.  The helicopter team was able to secure and removed the injured rider and get them back to Kelowna for medical treatment moments before helicopter operations had to be shut down.

5. On Sunday evening, COSAR’s boat team was called upon again to assist a stranded boater on Okanagan Lake.  However just moments after they were dispatched out, COSAR received a call that the boater had managed to get a shore.

6. Monday night just after midnight, COSAR received a call for a missing elderly female in the Postill Lake area. She had gone for a hike earlier that evening and had not returned.  As 11 COSAR members were headed into the area, we received word from the RCMP that the female had been located and she was safe and with her family.