More fire evacuees allowed to go home, Westside Road reopens

UPDATE: 4 p.m.

The number of properties on evacuation order due to the McDougall Creek Fire has gone from 380 on Wednesday, to less than 100 as of today.

Homes in the Raymer Bay area of Westside Road were downgraded to alerts today, and Westside Road reopened Wednesday night.

About 4,860 properties are on evacuation alert.

Original story

Crews appear to be making good progress towards getting control of the McDougall Creek Fire which started one month ago (Aug. 15) near West Kelowna.

As evidence of that, Central Okanagan Emergency Operations downgraded evacuation orders to evacuation alerts for 16 properties on Bear Creek Road on Thursday.

That comes after dozens of other evacuation orders were downgraded to alerts Wednesday night including on Westside Road along with Bancroft, Banff, Baird and Bolton roads to name a few.

To view the map of areas remaining under evacuation order and alert, visit cordemergency.ca.

Another positive sign is the reopening of Westside Road.

DriveBC announced that road reopened in both directions Thursday morning for the first time in several weeks.

The road has single lane alternating traffic between Highway 97 in West Kelowna and Fintry Delta Road.