The British Columbia Forest Fires

By August of 2003, the fears of thousands of British Columbians were realized as the summer's raging forest fires began to approach towns and cities in the Okanagan Valley. The spring had been hot and dry, turning the forests to timber, and soon thousands of fires were burning all over the southern part of the province. The province declared a state of emergency, evacuating tens of thousands of frightened residents. People living on the edges of Kelowna watched helplessly as the homes and lives that they built were consumed by fire. By the time the state of emergency was lifted in mid-September, 250 000 hectares of forest had been turned to ash. It was the worst fire season in British Columbia in the last hundred years.