Keremeos Creek fire grows, community evacuated

The Keremeos Creek wildfire, southwest of Penticton, is now estimated at 5,903 hectares, up about 1,600 from the last mapping on Wednesday.

While activity has been relatively quiet, strong winds Thursday night pushed the fire south, closer to Keremeos and Olalla.

“We had a huge wind event all yesterday [Thursday] afternoon. It was really strong, in excess of 50 km-h, pushing from north to south,” Bryan Zandberg of the BC Wildfire Service told the daily YouTube update.

One of the consequences of that movement was for the Regional District of Okanagan Similkameen to issue an evacuation order for Olalla (population 378 as of 2016) and an evacuation alert for Keremeos.

Zandberg says no new structures have been lost.

Just over 1,600 properties are under evacuation orders or alerts.

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