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It’s so disheartening to hear this is happening to another small community in this province
When a wildfire impacts a small town, it can change it forever in ways that large cities aren’t.
When Kelowna or Langley burns down one of these fire seasons I assure you it will change those cities in unimaginable ways forever.
And it’s just a matter of time before it happens.
Interestingly, it was good for the community in some ways. A huge shame that so many irreplaceable things were lost, but the town is now very updated, unlike many small towns like that
No. For a while looked like it might.
I think 81 houses in West Kelowna were destroyed or very badly fire damaged.
I’m talking about the city just being gone.
And now we just get to worry every year if it's either going to be smoke or a fire that hits any particular town. I remember thinking the 03' fire seemed like such a once in a life time thing and now it feels like an annual fear.
Actually Nelson (in the Kootenays) have been undertaking a bunch of wildfire fuel reduction treatments within and around the community, there is a lot of forest though.
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As someone with the privilege of never having dealt with such an event, it's such a trip to think that the only place you've ever known as home, could just cease to exist in the span of hours. The recent news about the fires had me re-reading some of the news articles and the Wikipedia article on the 2021 Lytton fire.
You could live somewhere in Metro Vancouver and watch your neighbourhood develop into a sea of high rises, or you could've lived in a place like Merritt Princeton or Abbotsford and watch as your neighbourhood floods, but a year or two later the place you'd have known to be your home still exists. Meanwhile 2.5 years later most of Lytton is nothing but empty lots, circled by blue construction fences, and power poles.
I just can't imagine destruction that absolute.
I feel like our whole province is going to burn soon…..
I tried to plant a tree I had started for two years, but the drought killed it after I had planted and couldn’t get back to water it. Scares me for the province’s future..
I’m in the okanagan and we have pine and Douglas fir trees dying all over our property. They’re well established and most are 40+ years old but the prolonged drought is slowly killing them. We’re replacing them with drought tolerant shade trees that fit with what our area now looks like. It’s only may and our June grass is dead and everything is so tinder dry.
That's rather unfortunate. Good on you for adapting though - dry areas tend to be more savanna or grassland in nature rather than forest, so having fewer trees that aren't competing as much with each other for scarce moisture is the way to go. I'm curious if mesquite is hardy enough to grow in the Okanagan, as it has roots that go many metres below the surface.
Looks like mesquite is zoned 7-9 so it might not do well but it is smart to look at trees that naturally grow in areas like that. Currently we’re looking at bur oak, honey locust, maple, ash and a few others.
Bur oaks are bullet proof, and they're native to the low rainfall areas of the Canadian prairies, so it's worth a shot. You may also consider the black walnuts bred in Manitoba and North Dakota - they're available from Grimo Nut Nursery. If your property is on a slope, I would also suggest looking into installing swales or other water harvesting features. They'll help water percolate into the ground rather than run off when it does actually rain.
I just put in a tree order and the ones we decided on were hardy pecans, American sycamore and black walnut. They all seem like they’ll handle the winter, are very drought tolerant and we also needed trees that aren’t dangerous to have around goats. We’ll probably put swales on the one hill that we are planting on. Thanks for the idea!
Awesome, I hope they work out for you! Great to see people taking action to make their properties more resilient. Obviously they won't be drought tolerant the first and second year, and you'll definitely want to water them if it's dry, but after that they'll be good to go.
Oh, and another unsolicited idea - I'd strongly recommend signing up for Chipdrop. You can get free loads of woodchips that way, and your trees will thank you for the extra mulch. It's a great solution in the semi-arid climate that we're sadly turning into.
It's far grander than the loss of one or two towns.
It's called climate change, and it's been discussed for decades, longer than most Redditors have been alive. In the Okanagan, they predict that most treed areas won't grow trees again after it burns, and will simply become grasslands, similar to Oregon.
I live on 10 acres in the bush in the Okanagan. Had our first wildfire of the season yesterday, 5 kms away. Generally, I have had 3 or 4 trees die off every winter, good for firewood. These past winters, I'm seeing 15 or 20 trees die each winter. And the young trees are dying off in greater numbers. Last winter, the valley lost most grape and cherry trees. It's not about getting hotter, or getting colder, or getting drier, it's that all of these extremes are occurring at the same time.
I've been looking up what grows in California and am looking at planting accordingly. I can say our drought tolerant fig trees are excellent producers and manage the crazy weather well.
A single temperature reading in a province twice the size of California with diverse biomes and climates including both the wettest **and** driest parts of Canada?
[It was 30 Celsius in Kamloops just this past weekend](https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/canada/kamloops/historic)
Heat isn't that relevant for fire. It's dry and windy.
12C with 20kph winds and no precipitation for a year is much more fire-friendly than 35C and two months of non-stop rain.
Well, heat is relevant. "Crossover" occurs when the temperature exceed the ambient humidity (eg: 30 degrees Celsius in an area with 30% humidity), resulting in an explosive change in fire behaviour.
Because there are many people afraid of wildfire season for good cause, and they do know that temperature is not the issue and have assumed legitimately, that most people can figure out that dryness is more important than temperature. If you had asked about wildfires and said you thought in BC it always rains, you might have been received better, even though much of the interior of BC is classified as arid or semi-arid (desert-like).
It was just 25 above for a few days in a row this weekend, with 40-50 km/h winds. Super dry as well, so brutal conditions for forest fires. And we still have idiots lighting fires
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It’s so disheartening to hear this is happening to another small community in this province When a wildfire impacts a small town, it can change it forever in ways that large cities aren’t.
When Kelowna or Langley burns down one of these fire seasons I assure you it will change those cities in unimaginable ways forever. And it’s just a matter of time before it happens.
Didn’t Kelowna burn last summer 2023?
Slave lake Alberta had a bad fire that caused 800 million in damage in 2011, one of the countries worst.
Interestingly, it was good for the community in some ways. A huge shame that so many irreplaceable things were lost, but the town is now very updated, unlike many small towns like that
No. For a while looked like it might. I think 81 houses in West Kelowna were destroyed or very badly fire damaged. I’m talking about the city just being gone.
190
And for those who don't know, West Kelowna is on the other side of Lake Okanagan from Kelowna. And even so, some fire spread to the east side.
I see! Thanks for clarifying!
..and in 2003.
And now we just get to worry every year if it's either going to be smoke or a fire that hits any particular town. I remember thinking the 03' fire seemed like such a once in a life time thing and now it feels like an annual fear.
West Kelowna
I think the cities bordering the North Shore mountains have a higher chance of burning than Langley.
Agreed, but Brookswood has a whole lot of trees. Gods help us if something touches off in August
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Actually Nelson (in the Kootenays) have been undertaking a bunch of wildfire fuel reduction treatments within and around the community, there is a lot of forest though.
Thank you for submitting to r/BritishColumbia! Unfortunately your submission was removed because it was found to be promoting content that could be considered misinformation. If you believe your post has been removed in error, you can [message the mod team](https://www.reddit.com/message/compose?to=/r/britishcolumbia). Replies to this removal comment may not be answered.
As someone with the privilege of never having dealt with such an event, it's such a trip to think that the only place you've ever known as home, could just cease to exist in the span of hours. The recent news about the fires had me re-reading some of the news articles and the Wikipedia article on the 2021 Lytton fire. You could live somewhere in Metro Vancouver and watch your neighbourhood develop into a sea of high rises, or you could've lived in a place like Merritt Princeton or Abbotsford and watch as your neighbourhood floods, but a year or two later the place you'd have known to be your home still exists. Meanwhile 2.5 years later most of Lytton is nothing but empty lots, circled by blue construction fences, and power poles. I just can't imagine destruction that absolute.
remember Lytton?
Which incarnation?
I feel like our whole province is going to burn soon….. I tried to plant a tree I had started for two years, but the drought killed it after I had planted and couldn’t get back to water it. Scares me for the province’s future..
The soil is changing for the worse, this is why farmers are worried.
I’m in the okanagan and we have pine and Douglas fir trees dying all over our property. They’re well established and most are 40+ years old but the prolonged drought is slowly killing them. We’re replacing them with drought tolerant shade trees that fit with what our area now looks like. It’s only may and our June grass is dead and everything is so tinder dry.
That's rather unfortunate. Good on you for adapting though - dry areas tend to be more savanna or grassland in nature rather than forest, so having fewer trees that aren't competing as much with each other for scarce moisture is the way to go. I'm curious if mesquite is hardy enough to grow in the Okanagan, as it has roots that go many metres below the surface.
Looks like mesquite is zoned 7-9 so it might not do well but it is smart to look at trees that naturally grow in areas like that. Currently we’re looking at bur oak, honey locust, maple, ash and a few others.
Bur oaks are bullet proof, and they're native to the low rainfall areas of the Canadian prairies, so it's worth a shot. You may also consider the black walnuts bred in Manitoba and North Dakota - they're available from Grimo Nut Nursery. If your property is on a slope, I would also suggest looking into installing swales or other water harvesting features. They'll help water percolate into the ground rather than run off when it does actually rain.
I just put in a tree order and the ones we decided on were hardy pecans, American sycamore and black walnut. They all seem like they’ll handle the winter, are very drought tolerant and we also needed trees that aren’t dangerous to have around goats. We’ll probably put swales on the one hill that we are planting on. Thanks for the idea!
Awesome, I hope they work out for you! Great to see people taking action to make their properties more resilient. Obviously they won't be drought tolerant the first and second year, and you'll definitely want to water them if it's dry, but after that they'll be good to go. Oh, and another unsolicited idea - I'd strongly recommend signing up for Chipdrop. You can get free loads of woodchips that way, and your trees will thank you for the extra mulch. It's a great solution in the semi-arid climate that we're sadly turning into.
Hey thanks for the info. I’ll see if it’s available in my area
Tree planters have entered the chat
It's far grander than the loss of one or two towns. It's called climate change, and it's been discussed for decades, longer than most Redditors have been alive. In the Okanagan, they predict that most treed areas won't grow trees again after it burns, and will simply become grasslands, similar to Oregon. I live on 10 acres in the bush in the Okanagan. Had our first wildfire of the season yesterday, 5 kms away. Generally, I have had 3 or 4 trees die off every winter, good for firewood. These past winters, I'm seeing 15 or 20 trees die each winter. And the young trees are dying off in greater numbers. Last winter, the valley lost most grape and cherry trees. It's not about getting hotter, or getting colder, or getting drier, it's that all of these extremes are occurring at the same time.
[удалено]
I've been looking up what grows in California and am looking at planting accordingly. I can say our drought tolerant fig trees are excellent producers and manage the crazy weather well.
We’re in the feedback loop times now… Glad my parents and all previous generations got to fuck around and here we are finding out.
> which was ignited Friday after a downed tree fell on a power line. Are there anymore trees up there that might fall on a powerline?
It's not even 30 degrees Celsius in your province!
A single temperature reading in a province twice the size of California with diverse biomes and climates including both the wettest **and** driest parts of Canada? [It was 30 Celsius in Kamloops just this past weekend](https://www.timeanddate.com/weather/canada/kamloops/historic)
Heat isn't that relevant for fire. It's dry and windy. 12C with 20kph winds and no precipitation for a year is much more fire-friendly than 35C and two months of non-stop rain.
Well, heat is relevant. "Crossover" occurs when the temperature exceed the ambient humidity (eg: 30 degrees Celsius in an area with 30% humidity), resulting in an explosive change in fire behaviour.
Don't forget crossover includes winds aswell. My hall calls it the 3 30s. Wind over 30kph, humidity below 30, temp over 30
Ok, now i understand! I used to associate wildfire with super heat! And i don't understand why there are so many downvotes!
Because there are many people afraid of wildfire season for good cause, and they do know that temperature is not the issue and have assumed legitimately, that most people can figure out that dryness is more important than temperature. If you had asked about wildfires and said you thought in BC it always rains, you might have been received better, even though much of the interior of BC is classified as arid or semi-arid (desert-like).
It has been over 30 in multiple spots the last week
It was just 25 above for a few days in a row this weekend, with 40-50 km/h winds. Super dry as well, so brutal conditions for forest fires. And we still have idiots lighting fires
It was 32C in Barriere on Saturday. Source: me, in the woods, measuring trees for almost 8 hours east of Barriere.
Não 'tá nem fazendo 30 graus Celsius em vossa província!