A wild fire that broke out Sunday night in the south Okanagan is now listed at 280 hectares in size. It has also resulted in evacuation recommendations being issued for the regional district of Okanagan Similkameen as well as to the Osoyoos Indian Band.

Fire Information Officer, with the Kamloops Fire Centre, Taylor MacDonald says hot dry conditions have helped the fire grow over the last day and a half. She says 100 personnel were dispatched to the site yesterday and 20 of those stayed overnight. “We definitely have had aerial resources help out as well. We had eight helicopters assigned to the incident and were helping out yesterday and should be back on site today. We also had air tankers on site there yesterday.”

“Definitely have adequate resources as required. We do have an incident management team that has been mobilized to respond to the incident and they should be established later on today” says MacDonald. “So, that will definitely help as well having all of them out there.”

MacDonald says there were a four other new fires that started over the weekend in the Kamloops region. “Nothing of great significance. All of them are under control or out at this time. So, we had great success on those ones this weekend.”

She adds the Kamloops region has a danger rating ranging from moderate to high with it being moderate near Kamloops itself.