Smoke On the Water

It’s amazing that after a long cold winter, that weather can change so quickly from flooding conditions to smoke filled skies and extreme fire danger ratings. 

Living in the Okanagan, we have the potential for microclimate extremes. Our mountain ski hills can have some of the best winter conditions found anywhere, with snowpacks over 200cm. This year we had a snowpack in our watershed that reached over 200% of the average annual.  

So many people worried about a reoccurrence of last years tragic flooding. However, the rain on snow events never materialized, and we escaped relatively unharmed. Not so lucky to the south of us... 

Now we have 40 days and Nights with no rain, and the occasional dry lightning. Fun, fun, fun. This has caused numerous fires.  Now homes are threatened and people, and pets are required to move.  

In the end, I always find it amazing when you see communities band together.  The horse/equestrian community is a great example of this. People who would otherwise never meet come to together to move these majestic animals. Many of these 1000 pound plus animals are scared/nervous, and now strangers are trying to load them into a trailer.  Personal injury is not uncommon. However, each owner knows at some point, they may need to make this call for help. TDM