Wildfire posted Jul 30, 2017 @ 06:29pm by Megan Trudeau

The Knox Mountain fire is currently held

(UPDATE: July 30th @ 6:30 p.m.)

Jody Lucius of the Kamloops Fire Centre said the Knox Mountain fire is being held at this time. Aircraft have been retired. There were 18 BC Wildfire personnel on the fire at its peak.

(UPDATE: July 30th @ 4:25 p.m.) - Wildfire burning on Knox Mountain

We have just received an update from the Kelowna Fire Department (KFD).

They are reporting that KFD crews and BC Forest Service on scene at Knox Mountain for a brush fire originating above the second look out. KFD has 18 members supported by an initial attack crew of three members from BCFS on a .75 hectare fire. Air support was called in early with two helicopters and two small 802 air tractors.

No residents are at threat at this time as ground crews are working to get a guard built around the fire and helicopter drops will continue throughout the afternoon.

Raw video below. Video credit to Rayane Armbrust

Photo credit: KelownaNow

Video courtesy Dom Bordin

(UPDATE: July 30th @ 4:00 p.m.)

Smoke on the hillside of Knox Mountain is barely visible now. We have not seen any aircraft dropping retardant for the past 30 minutes. We can see Kelowna Fire Department vehicles at the scene continuing to work. We have reached out to BC Wildfire for an update.

We can see that the fire was burning alongside the roadway on Knox Mountain. We were seeing visible flame early on, but cannot see any flame from our vantage point as of this update.

We had a Facebook live event going at the start of the fire. You can view it here. It is raw video and was shot from our office window that has a great view of Knox. (keep that in mind as we were also working on other stories at the same time)

(UPDATE: July 30th @ 2:50 p.m.)

We have received confirmation from the BC Wildfire Service that they are assisting with fire efforts at Knox Mountain, and there is currently a three person ground crew and two helicopters on the scene.

(Original Story: July 30th @ 2:37 p.m.)

A Wildfire has started on Knox Mountain in Kelowna.

Smoke from the scene is now visible.