janstey58 wrote:
Glad you are safe. But why would u drive through an area like that with a tank of gas and propane?
Because we didn't want to add another 3 hours or more to our trip which would have made it 6+ hours total. The shortest alternate route was a challenging twisty mountainous road and the next alternative route after that would have added a further few hours of driving. Plus we were guessing that many were already using alternative routes that could have made for some slow traffic. After having already towed our TT for about 2K miles in the past 2+ weeks, we just wanted to get to our destination asap.
There were still quite a few RVs, trucks and other vehicles on the road early that morning when we went through. The live gov't reports were saying hwy 97 was still fine for single lane escorted traffic traffic at the time we left that morning. But the fire obviously worsened a lot throughout the day. If it wasn't safe, they would have turned traffic back well before the fire zone.
A state of emergency has now been declared today in the Peachland area and we were lucky to get through when we did.
It made me think of the images on TV of the fires at Fort McMurray in Alberta a couple of years ago and the long lines of vehicles fleeing the area with flames and sparks all around them. Seeing flames racing up the hillside and trees exploding into flames like firecrackers before your very eyes is something to behold and very frightening. I can't imagine how hard it must be for the firefighters.
