{"id":163177,"date":"2026-08-10T21:51:15","date_gmt":"2026-08-10T21:51:15","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/163177\/"},"modified":"2026-08-10T21:51:15","modified_gmt":"2026-08-10T21:51:15","slug":"canadas-military-on-standby-to-help-battle-deadly-british-columbia-wildfire","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/163177\/","title":{"rendered":"Canada’s military on standby to help battle deadly British Columbia wildfire"},"content":{"rendered":"

Canada put its military on standby Monday to help battle deadly wildfires in British Columbia<\/a> as a local mayor warned that one of the blazes had wreaked huge destruction on his community. A woman has died and some 20,000 people have fled their homes so far.<\/p>\n

For days, scores of wildfires have burned across the province, nearly half of them out of control in hot, windy weather and prolonged drought. Thousands have fled on jammed roads as officials said even more communities could be threatened.<\/p>\n

The mayor of Summerland \u2014 home to about 12,000 people, which was ordered evacuated on Saturday night along with about 8,000 people in and around nearby Peachland \u2014 warned that the affected areas remained too dangerous to enter and that it was impossible to determine the scope of the destruction. <\/p>\n

The blaze \u2014 known as the Bald Range wildfire<\/a> \u2014 remained out of control after racing toward Summerland and other communities along Okanagan Lake over the weekend.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s going to be quite a bit,\u201d Mayor Doug Holmes said of the expected destruction. \u201cWe need to brace ourselves for that bad news when it\u2019s time to go back. Everybody will know somebody who has lost a home.\u201d<\/p>\n

The military is ready to respond, minister says<\/p>\n

Defense Minister David McGuinty said the Canadian Armed Forces were in constant contact with provincial and federal officials and were ready to respond if British Columbia formally requested assistance. The federal government has already approved provincial requests for help with shelter and accommodations.<\/p>\n

The Royal Canadian Mounted Police said an 80-year-old woman died while trying to escape the fire near Summerland. Canadian Prime Minister Mark Carney said the death was heartbreaking and that the federal government would continue supporting British Columbia.<\/p>\n

The British Columbia Wildfire Service said Monday the fire had grown to about 156 square kilometers (60 square miles), from 136 square kilometers (53 square miles) on Sunday. Officials warned clearer skies and direct sunlight could increase fire activity.<\/p>\n

In Summerland, Peachland and the surrounding areas, about 10,000 homes remained under evacuation orders, while more than 3,200 were under evacuation alerts \u2014 meaning they could be told to evacuate at any moment.<\/p>\n

Ravi Parmer, British Columbia Minister of Forests, said 19 helicopters were assigned to the Bald Range wildfire but that its intensity made it impossible to halt the blaze. <\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

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\u201cWe could have put a thousand more helicopters and a thousand more people on the ground, and it wouldn\u2019t have made a difference,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

British Columbia Wildfire Service information officer Nicole Bonnett said the smoke lingering over the Bald Range fire has reduced visibility, limiting the use of air tankers and water-skimming aircraft.<\/p>\n

Bonnett said the blaze has been fueled primarily by extremely dry conditions rather than wind, and grew explosively Friday, reaching 50 square kilometers (19 square miles) within three hours.<\/p>\n

Evacuated residents face uncertain prospects for return<\/p>\n

Holmes, the Summerland mayor, said there was no timetable for when residents would be able to return as power lines had been downed and hazards at the destroyed or damaged buildings would have to be assessed first. He added that residents would eventually return, likely neighborhood by neighborhood.<\/p>\n

\u201cThe hard part is going home and seeing the devastation,\u201d he cautioned.<\/p>\n

Kyla Gaudiuso, a resident of Faulder, a 215-strong community, said her home was likely destroyed as she had gotten a photo showing the ridge where it stood engulfed in flames. <\/p>\n

She described the community\u2019s evacuation as \u201cpandemonium\u201d and said she was now staying with a friend in the town of Penticton.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt doesn\u2019t really seem real,\u201d she said. \u201cI have to see it to believe it.\u201d<\/p>\n

Canada has endured increasingly destructive wildfire seasons<\/a> in recent years, forcing mass evacuations and repeatedly sending smoke across large parts of the country and neighboring United States.<\/p>\n

Summerland \u2014 a farming community that grows cherries, peaches and apples, and also boasts some vineyards \u2014 is in a mountainous area where wildfires have been known to break out.<\/p>\n

Holmes said the blaze started around 5:30 p.m. on Friday and was within the city limits in just a couple of hours. By midnight, it was so out of control that people were unable to flee on the highway north, so they began evacuating to the south, he said.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe had to pack up our cars, neighbors were helping neighbors,\u201d he said. \u201cPeople said they\u2019ve never seen a fire move so fast.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Canada put its military on standby Monday to help battle deadly wildfires in British Columbia as a local…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":163178,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[2],"tags":[28066,239,525,17,591,3517,12962,16325,52241,8721,592,52453,111,12396,4045,52454,52455,3942,2758,218],"class_list":["post-163177","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-ap-top-news","tag-british-columbia","tag-business","tag-canada","tag-canada-government","tag-climate","tag-climate-and-environment","tag-david-mcguinty","tag-doug-holmes","tag-fires","tag-general-news","tag-kyla-gaudiuso","tag-mark-carney","tag-military-and-defense","tag-natural-disasters","tag-nicole-bonnett","tag-ravi-parmer","tag-u-s-news","tag-wildfires","tag-world-news"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163177","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=163177"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/163177\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/163178"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=163177"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=163177"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.europesays.com\/canada\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=163177"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}