Massive wildfire still impacting flights to and from Kelowna today

William Barton/Shutterstock | Andrew Levangie/Submitted

Bad news for those hoping to get in and out of Kelowna Monday: despite efforts to resume flights from the Kelowna International Airport (YLW), airlines are still being impacted by a wildfire.

The cancellation list Monday includes flights to and from Vancouver, Victoria, Edmonton, Calgary, and Toronto. While there are some flights that show that they are still on the schedule, travellers are urged to contact the airlines to confirm.

“We are expecting flights to be cancelled on Monday, August 21, until 9 pm. Please check with your airline for updated flight information,” the airport said on social media.

Sam Samaddar, CEO of YLW, says they expect disruptions to continue as the airspace is reserved for essential firefighting efforts at this time – and therefore commercial flights during the day will be cancelled until conditions improve.

“During daytime hours, we currently do not have access to the airpace, the air tankers have that priority fighting the fires,” he said Monday, adding that air tankers can’t fly at night which is why they expect service to resume at 9 pm.

However, if visibility is too low and it’s unsafe to take off, passengers on later flights might still face cancellations.

“We are working with the airlines to fly a limited schedule to fly from 9 at night to 2 in the morning.”

He says it is very eerie, and comes after a very difficult few years for the airport.

“It’s been a tough go…the aviation industry as a whole has a tough time recovering from COVIF and then this happened.”

A screenshot of the cancellations for departing flights from Kelowna International Airport as of Monday morning. (ylw.kelowna.ca)

The McDougall Creek fire broke out on Tuesday, August 15, about 10 km from West Kelowna, and by Sunday it was an estimated 11,000 hectares in size and several homes have been destroyed.

Evacuation orders remain in place, and thousands remain on alert in case the fire grows further.

“Fire crews made good progress today while Canada Task Force One started assessing damage. Crews will keep working overnight. We are grateful for the support of the task force, BC Wildfire, RCMP, local & out-of-town crews. No changes to evac. orders or alerts expected tonight,” said the Central Ok Emergency social media account Sunday.

Read more here.

cordemergency.ca

To see if you are under an alert, head to this website.

There is some hope that airline service might resume by Monday evening; however, as of Monday at 9 am, that has not been confirmed.

Lukas Schaefer/Shutterstock

Andrew Levangie/Submitted

Submitted

A provincial State of Emergency remains in place and travel to the region for non-essential reasons has been restricted in order to assure that accommodation and resources remain in place for the thousands of people who have been forced to flee.

This is a developing story.

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With files from Nikitha Martins