Monday, July 20, 2009

Forest Fires renew Fears from 2003



JULY 19, 2009 - Kelowna's scenic surroundings are making national headlines again - for a sad reason.
Two Forest Fires have forced evacuation of almost half the homes in West Kelowna, and closed the highway disecting the town of Westbank.
Recalling the devastation in 2003 when over 200 homes were consumed by fire in the Okanagan-Mission region of Kelowna, national media have quickly descended upon the city.
Fortunately, nobody has been injured and it appears only two homes have been lost to the blaze that began Saturday afternoon.


Saturday, July 18, 2009

Water's the trouble?


In the middle of a hot,dry summer in the Okanagan, the most recent news around BC waterways have been sad.
On Okanagan Lake, this year's renewal of hydroplane races has been sunk by the promoter Jordan Schramm.
It's been a few years now since we've last seen the world's fastest boats racing just off the Kelowna shoreline. I enjoyed photographing the event for the sponsor Molson the last time around - even though I had to stretch my 300mm f2.8 Nikkor to its limit with a 1.4x teleconverter to get images reasonably tight.


Even sadder, a death was recently recorded on the first BC waterway I worked beside after graduating Journalism School. A rafting accident led to a fatality on the Kicking Horse River near Golden BC. It was back in the 1980's when I spent a couple summers photographing clients riding the rapids of this mountain river.

Here's a couple photos from these events in better times. More fun recreation on the water appears on my website