Firefighters don’t expect the Bald Range fire to be out any time soon, but it should be growing away from Summerland.

The latest update has the fire at 21,256 hectares with 14 evacuation alerts and nine evacuation orders. There are around 500 personnel fighting the fire.

Some evacuation orders have been downgraded to evacuation alerts so some evacuees were allowed to return home over the weekend. Residents east of Highway 97 in the McDougall Road area and the Trout Creek area west of Highway 97 have been allowed to re-enter.

Damage assessments in Summerland have been completed as evacuees return home.

Residents have been told to keep their eyes out for updates from the Central Okanagan Emergency Operations Centre and be prepared to evacuate again if the situation changes.

BC Wildfire Service incident commander Hugh Murdoch said the fight on the fire’s edge near communities has been effective but there’s a lot more work to do.

“Things are going really well out here today,” Murdoch said in an update on Aug. 16. “There’s been a lot of effort put in on the fire’s edge closest to communities.”

He said the fire is spreading to the northwest where it’s going to be challenging because of steep terrain and dense, dry fire fuel.

“It’s going to turn into a real traditional firefight there in some pretty tough ground given the conditions that we’re in,” he said.

BC Wildfire Service fire behaviour analyst Eric Kopetski said the fire area hasn’t seen rain in 40 days, and the area it’s heading to is so dense that it’s going to take more water to suppress the fire.

“This is going to cause us to have difficulty with suppression due to the thickness and when we use aerial resources it’s very hard for water to penetrate down to the ground and suppress this fire,” he said in an update on Aug. 16. “It also releases so much heat that water is less effective so we need more water and more effort to be able to control this fire.”

Highway 97 has been reopened in both directions, but people can’t exit into evacuation order areas.

The Quilpituk Creek fire is still listed as being held at 1,275 hectares and the evacuation orders were lifted last week. Further north, the Bradley Creek wildfire is also being held at 2,658 hectares.

Smoky air quality is hanging around the valley with yellow air quality alerts for Kelowna, Vernon and Kamloops, and an orange air quality warning is in place for Penticton.

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