Quote:
Originally Posted by calgarygeologist
I just heard on CBC that the fire is encroaching on downtown Fort Mac and that crews aren't certain if they can keep the fire back.
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man this sucks - it brings back tons of memories from the okanagan park fire that hit kelowna back in 2003
i know the city of kelowna had the green light from both the provincial and federal governments to bulldoze a fire break right thru the neighbourhood i currently live in - take out all the houses on both sides of the main road going into my neighbourhood. thankfully the wind shifted about an hour or two before the bulldozers were deployed. the fear was if the fire got past the main road there would be nothing anyone could do and the fire would make it's way to the city center.
i think one of the unreal things with fires this big is how fast they move. one of my buddies who is a fire fighter was in the kettle valley subdivision trying to save homes during the 2003 fire. the winds shifted and they had to go now - like immediately. they didn't even have time to depressurize their hose lines. all they had time to do was fire up a chain saw, run around the fire truck cutting thru the hoses and then getting out of their as fast as the engine would go - super scary!
my heart goes out to you fort mac - i can relate. thankfully in '03 our house was fine, but many of my friends had to rebuild - which was tough, but in the grand scheme of things they just lost 'stuff' and in time were able to get a bunch of new stuff.