Authorities lifted the evacuation order on all but eight West Kelowna homes late Monday morning after firefighters there brought more than half a massive wildfire under control.
Only eight large rural properties remained evacuated at noon Monday as a government news release stated 60 per cent of the Smith Creek fire had been contained Sunday. The fire is still about 260 hectares in size and an evacuation alert remains for a number of areas.
The Emergency Support Services reception centre at Mount Boucherie Senior Secondary School will be closed at 6 p.m. Monday, according to an update from the Central Okanagan Regional District.
Wet weather in many parts of the province helped provide relief over the weekend, but as of Monday at noon there were still 15 wildfires of note that were highly visible or posed a potential threat to public safety, according to the B.C. Wildfire Management Branch.
Hot and dry weather is expected to return by the end of this week, noted B.C. Wildfire Management Branch spokeswoman Navi Saini.
Fires in mountain beetle-killed pine stands can spread more quickly than in healthy forests, burn more intensely, and the flying embers can start spot fires more often and farther away. In the older dead pine stands, falling trees are a significant threat to firefighters.
The dead and dying pine trees hit by the beetle epidemic 鈥� which peaked in about 2006 鈥� cover more than 16 million hectares of forest. The area, five times the size of 91原创 Island, straddles the Interior but also stretches into the northeast and Okanagan.
Scientists expect the fire behaviour problems caused by the beetle epidemic to last 15 to 20 years.
