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The skies yellowed and blackened over Penticton Monday afternoon and ash fell to earth like snow.
The stench of wildfire smoke was all around and at the airport, a constant stream of tankers landed, refilled and took off, the drone of their engines reverberating ominously across the valley for hours on end.
As the ceiling of darkness invariably slipped over the city and the volume of ash and tanker sounds increased, one could be forgiven for thinking the apocalypse wasn’t far off.
One could also be forgiven for thinking an intense new fire had just sprung up on the perimeter of the city.
But on this day, all those ashes and all that day-blackening, lung-filling smoke originated more than 50 kilometers away in a hilly, partially treed section of Osoyoos Indian Band land lying between Oliver and Osoyoos and just east of one of the south Okanagan's most popular winery zones -- Black Sage Road.
Less than ten kilometers down the road in Osoyoos, the day was clean and clear and sunny. Meanwhile in Penticton, more than four times the distance from the fire but also in the path of northerly winds and extra smoke from the still-burning Thomas Creek wildfire near OK Falls, day turned to night.
Today, the wind has changed direction and there's once again a sense of normalcy in Penticton. So far, anyway.
But it's anything but normal in Oliver, where the "Nk'Mip Creek" fire (the name was changed from "Inkaneep Creek" to better reflect Indigenous spelling) has grown overnight from 700 to 1100 hectares and where several hundred properties under Osoyoos Indian Band and RDOS Area C jurisdiction have been ordered evacuated.
For the latest updates on the Nk'Mip Creek wildfire, head here.
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