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VIDEO: Salmon Arm residents offer words of support to Penticton during Christie Mountain wildfire

Residents empathize having shared experience of past wildfires in B.C.

Residents of Salmon Arm are thinking of their South Okanagan neighbours in Penticton as the Christie Mountain wildfire continues to rage.

As of Friday, Aug. 21, more than 300 homes were under evacuation order in Penticton, while an evacuation alert was in effect for more than 3,600 properties in the southeast area of the city. At that time, the wildfire had reached 2,000 hectares in size.

Approximately 176 kilometres away, residents of Salmon Arm were closely following the news in Penticton, many able to empathize as their lives had in some way been touched by past wildfires, including the 1998 blaze which began in the Fly Hills and resulted in the evacuation of more than 7,000 residents of the Shuswap city. Those asked were keen to express their support and well-wishes to Penticton during this anxious and challenging time.

Read more: Searing memories of the 1998 Silver Creek wildfire in the Shuswap

Read more: Remembering 1998

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Deputy Mayor Chad Eliason, Darcie Fletcher, Columbia Shuswap Regional District Fire Services Co-ordinator Sean Coubrough, Anna Dimaggio, Matt Koivisto and Jennifer Beckett are among Salmon Arm residents thinking of their Penticton neighbours as the South Okanagan city struggles with the Christie Mountain wildfire. (Lachlan Labere-Salmon Arm Observer)