After the historic events of the last few days, we want to give a shout out to our crew.

Last Thursday morning our search manager met with the West Kelowna police and fire departments to see how COSAR could be of service.
A few hours later water bombers spotted a tent on the summit of Carrot Mountain about five km from the McDougall Creek fire. A team was sent up to evacuate the camp.

At 4 pm the call went out to assist with issuing evacuation orders in West Kelowna. As well, the boat team was dispatched to aid in possible evacuations by water and both Vernon and Penticton SAR teams were called in to assist evacuating Clifton/Magic Estates and the West side simultaneously.

We had five teams working ahead of the flames, but one West Kelowna team got cut off by the fire and had to use Westside Rd. to Vernon to get home. They arrived at 4 am with some of them returning to their paying jobs five hours later.

Four hours later the team was back at it issuing evac orders in Lake Country, Quails Ridge, Glenmore and West Kelowna.
Our ground teams were paused on Saturday but the boat team remained on Okanagan Lake keeping curious boaters away from the water bombers.

In all, almost 30 COSAR members volunteered nearly 1,000 hours over the three days, giving between 2500 and 3000 evacuation orders.