Part of the encampment near Okanagan Falls.
Image Credit: Okanagan Forest Task Force
November 13, 2023 - 1:00 PM
The Okanagan Forest Task Force is planning to cleanup tons of garbage from a large encampment in the woods.
"The camp is full of travel trailers, cars, motorhomes, metal, tons and tons of garbage and even hidden underground locations," Kane Blake, a member of the task force, said in a media release.
The task force is a group of volunteers who have cleaned up more than 815,000 pounds of garbage from the forests around the Okanagan since 2016.
READ MORE: Kelowna forest cleanup group may have saved a life and a forest last night
This encampment near Okanagan Falls is one of the biggest jobs the group has taken on. According to local residents the camp has been there for four years and told the task force the mess has been growing.
When the task force arrived on the scene yesterday they found a garbage fire still smoldering.
"Yep that's burning garbage and it smells like burning garbage," Blake said in a video posted to the group’s Facebook page.
Camps like this can be a wildfire hazard.
"This is not the first encampment we have been to where a brush or a wildfire was started. Sadly this is the risk we take by letting these camps stay and something needs to change," Blake said.
The task force is on the job, but Blake says it isn’t going to be easy.
"It's now one of our main priorities for the spring and is going to take a lot of planning," says Blake.
Find out more about the Okanagan Forest Task Force here.
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