Peachland POST YOUR COMMUNITY NEWSPAPER
The week of April 25, 2025
CLIMATE CHANGE Action needed from all levels of government P.6
KIDS ARE ALRIGHT Youth soccer had stellar opening weekend P.8
Visit our website at peachlandpost.org • Vol. 1 Issue 17
ABOUT TOWN Find out what’s going on and where it’s happening P.11
SURVEY SAYS What are you willing to do as the planet heats up? P.3
FIRE FIGHT NATURAL DISASTER
Reporter John McDonald sat down with Peachland Fire & Rescue Fire Chief Ian Cummings and Deputy Fire Chief Wes Aigro to talk about wildfires in our community.
PP: Is Peachland more vulnerable than other communities to wildfire? WA: I would say we are probably equally as vulnerable as other communities in the area simply because of being in the Okanagan Valley. Our topography is essentially the same as a lot of other communities. However, we have some unique weather patterns that materialize from the Trepannier area that creates a crosswind which can affect fire spread rates in the area. Also Peachland is bordering the interface for essentially the entire length of the community, which poses problems for us. PP: Some people think that being downhill from a fire means they are safe. Is that true? WA: In the evening wind conditions can change and the winds
will start blowing back down the hills which is a significant risk for us. Fire does tend to travel uphill more often and faster but because we are seeing longer times during the day where we have what we call crossover where we have those conditions for fires to be extremely aggressive, it does make it more challenging. PP: The 2023 McDougall Creek fire in West Kelowna spotted over two kilometres across Okanagan Lake. Do fire breaks even mean anything anymore? WA: Firebreaks will help give you an area where an intense fire will come up against it and usually drop down. You don’t have fuels there, you don’t have the fire intensity but the embers will start spotting across that fire break. With Peachland its challenging for us because most the land around it
John McDonald photo
An air tanker drops a load of retardant on a wildfire.
is Crown land up against private land. It’s not within the district so it makes it more difficult to do any kind of mitigation work. A lot of the property above us is private and is forested quite heavily so even if we put a break in its just going to spot across it and get into residential areas and continue on from there. PP: Do our winding, hilly roads make things more difficult?
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IC: Part of the problem is that you get the spotting into the community, and we have a lot of dead end roads; it’s hard for us to turn our apparatus around so in a wildfire event, and I’ve seen this first hand, the fire spots behind you then burns up hill and cuts you off. One of the important factors is having a second egress. It’s also why its SEE WILDFIRES PAGE 7
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