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Wildfires burn across western US and Canada as residents are evacuated
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Wildfires burning across the western U.S. and Canada on Sunday left some residents keeping a wary eye out for possible evacuation orders while others already forced to flee their homes waited to see what would be left on their return.
In western Canada, over 20,000 people were forced to flee communities along Okanagan Lake in British Columbia over the weekend as a fast-moving wildfire destroyed homes and dozens had to be rescued by aircraft. In the U.S., crews in Washington that have been fighting three wildfires that began burning in the Spokane area for over a week continued cleanup near containment lines.
Laurie Allen left her home in Nine Mile Falls, a community north of Spokane, last weekend, fleeing with her husband, dog and two kittens as a wildfire burned a short distance away. The roads into her neighborhood were still closed Sunday but she said she'd learned from a friend that while covered in ashes, her house and others nearby were intact.
“I’ve been here 65 years. It’s never happened,” Allen said. “We didn’t think about anything but grabbing our animals and leaving. But now it’s affected so many of our friends and family around. So it’s pretty dang devastating.”
In Canada, Anette Boulet was among residents who fled Summerland, home to about 12,000 people along Okanagan Lake in British Columbia. As she and her family left around 4:30 a.m. Saturday, their home was shrouded in smoke.
“You couldn’t see barely. It was, it was just dark, and the ridge, the ridge of fire just coming towards you,” said Boulet, who evacuated to a center in Penticton.
“There’s no words to express it," she said. "The fear.”
Later Sunday, the Royal Canadian Mounted Police said an 80-year-old woman died while trying to escape the wildfire that forced evacuations in the Okanagan Lake region.
Besides the evacuations in Summerland, the Bald Range fire, first reported Friday evening, has also led to the evacuation of about 8,000 people in and around nearby Peachland. British Columbia declared a state of emergency Saturday.
Eleanor Olszewski, Canada’s minister of emergency management and community resilience, said Sunday on social media that she’d approved a request for federal assistance from British Columbia to provide shelter and accommodations for those forced to flee.
Crews fighting three wildfires in the Spokane area continued “mop-up operations” on Sunday near containment lines, and none of the fires were growing, according to a news release from the team managing those wildfires. The fires, which have burned over the last week, have damaged or destroyed about 920 structures.
Earlier in the week, a man was arrested and charged with intentionally setting the biggest of the three Spokane-area blazes.
Residents in the tiny rural town of Malden, located about 35 miles (55 kilometers) south of Spokane, had been urged Saturday to evacuate immediately. By Sunday, however, their evacuation level was downgraded to be ready to quickly leave if necessary.
“The wind is fairly calm. The fire is not progressing,” said John Goyke, whose company operates Malden’s water under contract, “but we’re using social media and Facebook to keep in contact with everyone.”
Goyke, who is the mayor of nearby Rosalia, said Malden’s residents have been told to conserve water so it can be saved for fire trucks if needed, and Malden’s fire department has been trucking water from Rosalia.
In 2020, Malden was mostly destroyed by a wildfire, losing its fire station, post office, city hall and library.
In Utah, two helicopter pilots were killed when their aircraft crashed while they were fighting a wildfire Friday morning in the Fishlake National Forest. Crews were finally able to get to the site Saturday to confirm the deaths.
Officials said Sunday that fire activity had prevented them from quickly reaching the area amid steep, rough terrain.
“When we first got there we could see two different plumes of smoke, one from the crash site, one from an active fire coming towards us,” Sevier County Sheriff Nathan Curtis said.
The National Transportation Safety Board is investigating the cause of the crash.
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