Greg sent me an e-mail asking what we were seeing today in Kelowna...and the answer is the same as yesterday: mostly just thick smoke...which is also what we're breathing. Still lots of incredible photos on Castanet, which has been our main source of news about the fire. So sad that houses burned on Rimrock, where my folks used to live.
The loss of the park, the Crawford trail system and the trestles will be really hard to take for this mountain biker -- I think it will start to sink in later, and then I'll grieve. It sounds silly, perhaps, but those places have played a large role in my sense of self, place and value. I guess it's still possible that the Myra Canyon KVR trestles won't get torched-- the trestles are irreplaceable -- but the possibility of the fire not going through there is looking pretty slim. I wonder if our perfect little swimming hole in KLO creek will be destroyed? Gallagher's Canyon? It sounds like firefighters are abandoning Bertram Creek Park, the special spot where Tannis and I got married. I have way too many favourite places in the swath of that fire -- places that have defined my last seven years here-- and it's really pissing me off.
Well, since I started this post, it appears to be going from very bad to much worse:
"Structure fire in Belcarra in the Chute Lake area. 3:53 pm. Fire has breached the Cedar Creek fire hall on Lakeshore. Fire has breached Chute Lake Road. Reports of structures in the Lakeshore Road area catching fire. Winds estimated at 60 to 70 km/h."
That's all around my folks' place, and with winds like that...shit. You know things have gone sour when the damn fire hall is on fire. It's starting to sound like hell has descended on the Upper Mission.
