The 2017 and 2018 wildfire seasons may have been the worst BC has ever seen, but locally, nothing compares to the firestorm of 2003.
The Okanagan Mountain Park fire saw thousands evacuated and displaced.
August 16, 2003, lightning struck at 1:55 AM, 911 was called three minutes later, and before the day's end evacuation alerts were in place for part of South Kelowna.
Within four days the fire had reached 11,000 hectares in size and consumed nearly all of Okanagan Mountain Provincial Park.
Gerry Zimmerman was the Kelowna Fire Chief at the time. He says at one point winds caused the fire to jump and some of his crew watched their exit route go up in flames. It was one of his most terrifying moments. "When I got news that those men were trapped up in Kettle Valley, the other ones were scurrying out of there, and the fire was coming at us real hot and heavy. They say at one point they figure the flames were close to 400 ft high. I remember I was down at the main hall, the operations centre at the time, I remember I just took a moment and went up to my office alone and I remember dropping my head on the table and figured we ain't going to win this one."
But win it they did, with a little help from the rain. The fire was contained one month after igniting.
"I remember saying at one point that Mother Nature started it and Mother Nature is going to have to put it out too, so that's pretty much what happened."
At the highest point of evacuations, 26,000 residents were evacuated.
Ken Ficocelli and his family were forced to leave their home in Crawford Estates, and when allowed back to see what was left almost nothing was found. "One of the things that I recall was our kids' plastic basketball hoop, one of the play school basketball hoops...The whole house and everything was gone and melted, and that hoop along with the netting on it it's like it was brand new."
Ficocelli's home was one of 238 that were lost. "I think you kind of wonder why that house was spared and yours wasn't, but I wouldn't say there was any jealousy at all."
Leading the fight, Zimmerman says the adrenaline rush left little time to stop and think - but the physcial and mental strain catches up. "When it really got bad was when it was all over and you start going into reruns of things. Then you get really tired too, because when it's going on you've got such an adrenaline rush you're going on maybe two hours of sleep a night if even that and you're function. Then when it's over for about a month I just couldn't get enough sleep."
The Okanagan Mountain Park fire destroyed 12 wooden trestles at Myra Canyon and a total of 25,600 hectares were burned.