Wildfire near Peachland mapped at 450 hectares, winds blowing ...

The wildfire burning near Peachland, B.C., more than quadrupled in size Sunday as dry and windy weather encouraged growth, though officials say conditions will improve in the days ahead.

The Glen Lake wildfire, sparked Saturday, is burning 15 kilometres west of Peachland and was mapped at 450 hectares Monday morning, a significant jump from the 75 hectares it was pegged at on Sunday afternoon.

“As of yesterday, it was moving at a rank three to rank five and we can expect similar activity today,” said Evan Lizotte, fire information with BC Wildfire.

“However, luckily, the weather will be a little bit more in our favour today. It’s supposed to be about 20 C (Monday) as opposed to yesterday, when it was much warmer than that, and the winds aren’t supposed to be as high as yesterday.”

The relative humidity is also going to be higher Monday, and more moisture in the air is expected to help the firefight also.

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For town residents, nature is also offering an assist.

“The winds are blowing northwest to southwest, so that is going away from Peachland,” Lizotte said.

Nonetheless, Peachland fire Chief Dennis Craig said he’s meeting with fire officials provincially and locally to assess risks to homes in the community.

“The biggest thing is we have a fire on our landscape is a fire that’s just over 12 to 13 kilometres, as the crow flies, from our community,” Craig said.

“As we saw four weeks ago, we had fire spotting five and a half kilometres away, over a body of water. So you know preparedness is key and that’s a big portion of our plan today. Hopefully, it doesn’t come to it but my plan today is to sit down with some of the experts from the City of Kelowna and work out what our structure defence plan should look like should we need to do it.”

Part of that will be looping in other resources so they can be available should it come to it.

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BC Wildfire Service and Peachland Fire and Rescue are co-ordinating response efforts on the fire with support from the Central Okanagan Regional District and surrounding communities.

The fire had helicopters bucketing throughout the day Sunday and bucketing operations will continue Monday, BC Wildfire said.

Heavy equipment is working on establishing a guard at the west end of the fire Monday. Structural protection operations will continue as well.

There is an evacuation alert and order associated with the Glen Lake wildfire issued by the Regional District of Central Okanagan, the Westbank First Nation and the District of Peachland.

It was expanded Monday to include all areas east of the Brenda Forest Service Road starting at the 1.5 kilometre marker on the Forest Service Road to Brenda Mines Road, all areas abutting the Peachland Forest Service Road between Brenda Mines Road and the Glen Lake Forest Service Road, and extending south to the boundary between the Regional District of Central Okanagan and the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen.

It also included 4900, 5875 Bear Mines Road and Great Creek Camp.

Check the interactive map available at www.cordemergency.ca/map for more