Wednesday, 12 August, 2026
The Drinks Business, Sarah Neish
Fires are blazing across British Columbia with one, named as the Bald Ridge Wildfire, snaking perilously close to vineyards in renowned wine region the Okanagan Valley.
The Bald Range Wildfire ignited last Friday 7 August about 15 km northwest of Summerland, which is itself about 109km from Okanagan. Within three hours of first being detected, the inferno grew to 50 square kilometres, said local authorities, and by Saturday 8 August nearly 22,000 people had been forced to evacuate their homes, with a provincial state of emergency declared.
Atypical path
It is hard to overstate the ferocity of the fire, which as of yesterday had grown to 156 square kilometres. The flames have not followed the typical path of a wildfire, which tends to burn upslope, as winds from the west have instead pushed the fire down hill and created a channel of wind and fire funnelled and intensified between mountains.
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