KELOWNA, B.C. — It's been about five years since Jesse Zeman began a summer ritual of boxing up keepsakes and personal effects to ship to relatives because he worried his home in Kelowna, B.C., would burn down.
Eventually, Zeman said he and his wife moved their treasures permanently after the family had to evacuate twice. Now they have a so-called"go box" prepared and they are ready to leave at a moment's notice every summer.
On Aug. 16, 2003, a lightning strike sparked a fire near Okanagan Mountain Provincial Park that eventually grew to 250 square kilometres, spurring evacuations of more than 33,000 residents and damaging or destroying more than 200 homes. Retired firefighter Glen Maddess and his wife live in Kelowna, and he remembers seeing the fire as it smouldered in the park that day in 2003.
"It's interesting 20 years later that we're facing basically the same problems as we did before," he said. Former Kelowna fire chief Gerry Zimmermann has had a lot of time to reflect on the 2003 disaster, and he's now just thankful it wasn't worse as wildfire seasons have only grown in intensity since.
"We were giving information out as soon as we had it," he said."That was very, very successful. That's what got us through."
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Two decades later, record wildfires in Kelowna, B.C. are dwarfed by current seasonKELOWNA, B.C. — It's been about five years since Jesse Zeman began a summer ritual of boxing up keepsakes and personal effects to ship to relatives because he worried his home in Kelowna, B.C., would burn down.
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Two decades later, record wildfires in Kelowna, B.C. are dwarfed by current seasonKELOWNA, B.C. — It's been about five years since Jesse Zeman began a summer ritual of boxing up keepsakes and personal effects to ship to relatives because he worried his home in Kelowna, B.C., would burn down.
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