The 2003 Okanagan Mountain Park Fire as seen from West Kelowna.

(MARSHALL JONES / iNFOnews.ca)

It’s been twenty years so perhaps I can say it now: The Okanagan Mountain Park fire was one of the best things to happen to Kelowna.

Yes, 238 homes were destroyed. Yes, half the city was evacuated and yes, there were many scary moments over about three weeks in August and September, 2003. But considering that no one died and all those homes were rebuilt, perhaps we can consider some other factors.

It could have been worse. Every city and town in the Central Okanagan — and the province — knew this fire would happen. You could see it from Penticton to Kelowna, though perhaps you needed a professional forester's eye to understand it. Nick Arkle from Gorman Bros Lumber was raising alarm bells about the state of the park two years before the fire. There hadn’t been a good fire there in generations to clean up fallen trees and fuels. Once a fire started, you’d never stop it. But now that it’s gone, the entire southern perimeter of the city can hardly be called an interface area anymore. A few years ago, another fire started and crews didn't even bother fighting it before it petered out.

Marshall Jones, managing editor

That it wasn’t worse means this was a fire alarm we all needed. In 2003, the fire was quite unusual. At that time, it wasn’t typical to see homes lost in interface fires, just a few examples in Australia and California but nothing like we’ve seen since. Earlier that year, other large fires had erupted and the response was pitiful. Kelowna Fire Chief Gerry Zimmermann and social services director Beryl Itani basically wrote the playbook on large-scale emergency response, evacuation, care and communication. It has served us well many times since.

It brought the city and the entire region together, everyone rolling up their sleeves and pitching in where possible. People opened their homes to friends and strangers who needed places to stay while evacuated. That sounds all rainbows and unicorns but it was tangible and important. Look around today, folks, the spirit of volunteering is dying. Service clubs are going dodo, no one wants to do that anymore. Could we find and train hundreds of volunteers that quickly again? I have my doubts except for the people who were here and remember.

I also argue that the fire put Kelowna on the map and kickstarted its economy and prosperity, or at least topped it up. Twenty years ago, Kelowna was tiny by comparison, not just in population but in stature, literally and figuratively. It was trying to evolve from kitschy tourist attractions, beaches and peaches to… something else. At that time I was watching the city’s economy quite closely. Western Star Trucks, at the time the largest secondary manufacturer in Western Canada, closed and moved to Portland two years earlier. That meant roughly 1,000 high-paying jobs disappeared, along with many more suppliers and companies and their employees. Manufacturing was worth seven times what tourism was pushing into the economy at the time.

I was waiting for another shoe to drop on how this was impacting the city’s economy. Turned out it didn’t matter. After the blaze, Kelowna took off like, well, wildfire. Construction crews were busy spending insurance money. But more than that, all the news of the fires, the response, the recovery put spectacular Kelowna views on television screens across the country. It wasn’t just Alberta’s summer playground anymore — they came from everywhere. It became like the Muskokas of Western Canada.

Then they all started to move and retire here. House prices doubled, then doubled again and doubled one more time, making homeowners instantly wealthy (er). Kelowna was growing fast before the fire, but reached another level, literally. I’d wager the fire, as much as anything else, is responsible for the demand for all those highrises we’re building.

This weekend, we're taking a longer look at the 20th anniversary of the fire in a series of stories. The fire was in August, but we're intentionally early as a reminder that we are in fire season and to be vigilant.

Yes, there was some good from the 2003 fire, thanks to some great luck. No one wants to have to rely on that luck again.

— Marshall Jones is the Managing Editor of iNFOnews.ca

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