neighborhood evacuated my van left to die

my van may or may not be devoured by 400' flames... literally. another fire storm complete with little tornadoes is destroying my neighborhood. i'm stuck in another town watching a huge wildfire rip apart west kelowna b.c. my house, my shop, my pets, everything but the people i love are at the mercy of a 60kmh wind, 35c temperatures and flames many stories high. for those who dont know kelowna and area is a desert. it burned to a crisp in 2003 and now its doing the other side of okanagan lake where 25,000 people live. everybody is evacuated and the roads shut down. i am stuck 2hrs out of town watching my life going to hell on the nightly news... after 47 years dodging the reaper, could this be the 8balls final hour? i bloody hope not. cheers

Went through the same thing in 03 down here.

yeah! cali burns bad... kelowna is the same environment, we have an actual desert region in oliver, and rattlesnakes, scorpions, cactuses, lizards and huge demented fires that make their own weather. the bush out back of our house is so dry that you could light it up with a single spark. people imagine canada to be like the inside of an icecube. i have friends from south africa who say they suffer worse here from the heat than they did in capetown. it can stay at 41c for a month if it wants. the inevitable result is constant fire.

during this time of year the wind can be as hot as a hair dryer pointed at your face, it is powerfully hot sometimes, this region is only 19% humidity right now. we are on full blown water restrictions and both my lawns are tinder. i've lived here for 34 years and i swear this is a climate change thing. http://www.castanet.net/

thanks g-man, the worry is the wind, if it changes it will go straight through the neighborhood, there is about 6500 residences in the direct area. quite the gong show and the kegger is that there is no news being updated for over an hour. no one has been hurt yet, we all learned to just haul and get lost after 2003. the houses were imploding all over the place. totally insane.

thanks g-man thats awsome dude

my prayers are with you!

Later,
Rip

Living in New York we have never had anything like that. I see these fires every year on the news and I don't understand with everything we can do in modern times we can't figure out a way to fight these fires better. We sent a man to the moon 40 years ago!
Hope you get lucky...Good luck

donn these fires are so violent that they chuck burning crap like 10km away and start new fires. if you stay anywhere near them you will die. the suction created is so intense that houses implode and pinecones and branches become missiles. also a thunderstorm can form above the fire in the middle of a clear day and the lightening from this "firestorm" causes more fires. this phenomenom is due to the tremendous heat generated by the inferno this actually happened in 2003 here. trees explode instead of burn and vehicles turn into bombs. over the few hours since i first posted this mother has engulfed over 200 hectares and started two other fires kilometers away that are both out of control, one being over sixty hectares already. 10,000 people are under evacuation order . we are in for a major pants down whipping again. all the highways are blockaded and if the wind turns many of us wont have homes to return to. my buddy bob has already lost his house. this is getting intense

Wow, that's crazy! I am guessing you are located in the south west part of Canada? I always thought Canada was all green and somewhat cooler. Kind of surprised there is even a "desert" type area in Canada. Man I hope your Pets, house and van make it. I can't even imagine what you are going through.

Steve, I'm really sorry! I had no idea that's going on. Okanagan can get hot, but I remember how hot it was in Osoyoos travelling through as a kid! Yeah... it gets hot!

I hope it's all okay. Best wishes, prayers and luck to you.

Corey

Sorrry to hear about your trouble Illl sasy a prayer foir you

Any updates steve????

I know what you are going through. We have fires here every year. We have had three within 2 blocks of my house in the last two weeks. One got close enough to char my next door neighbors back fence.

the weather in canada is quite varied for sure. from + 40s where you are to - 30s c in the north during winter months. hell we get both extremes here to but not for long periods of time. we are on the east coast bitchin about the rain thats been falling for a couple of weeks now but rain is better than what you guys are dealing with now. hope it turns out for you guys and will be watching things close and hoping............jeff

thanks everyone for your concern, we have just got back into town tonight. the glenrosa fire is 40% contained at 350 hectares, the rosevalley fire is at 30 hectares, and the terrace mountain fire is full on at 850 hectares. you can see all three of these if you stand on hwy 97. it looks pretty good for the glenrosa fire right now as the crews were able to action it all day. we hope the wind stays down. tommorow we have to try to rescue our pets with an spca escort behind the fire line. so far no one is hurt! thank you all again for the kind words peace. steve and family

http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/americas/8158210.stm we made front page news on the bbc! check out the flames

WOW! That is some crazy sh*t! Hope things get better!

Wow, I've been so busy I haven't paid any attention to the news. Good luck and may the van gods be with you....like someone else said, if not then we'll just have to help you find a new one.

thanks enbro, i was just posting a picture of a van that was burned up in the blaze. all three fires are looking human caused and now there are two more. one in oliver and one in vaseux creek. the mill escaped because the employees fought back the blaze, theres been a number of homes lost but still no one hurt also we got the pets out so we are holed up at my dads with the following: two kids two budgies two hamsters two cats one tarantula and one dog. the 8ball is still alive and slowly dripping on the driveway. i consider us all climate change refugees. peace steve

steve, i'm not a praying guy, but i'll shake my fist at the sky and wish up some better luck for you. i hope everything turns out and they control/contain the wildfires in your area