Kelowna Fire's and CCMA's
July 23, 2009

Something amazing happened to me yesterday, something that I've wanted to happen for quite some time. I received the information that I was one of the nominees for something called the Fan's Choice Award from the Canadian Country Music Association. This is an honor to be one of the five nominees for this year's award, along side Doc Walker, George Canyon, Jessie Farrell and Johnny Reid, I am just so grateful that I get to share the nomination with such amazing artists.

My initial reaction was to tell all my family, my friends and to let the fans know what just occurred and so I did. But an even more amazing feeling came over me and that was that although this is, by far to me, the most meaningful award I have ever been nominated for I sat back for a minute and thought about another situation that outweighed a nomination for an award by a large amount.

As some of you may be aware, I live in Kelowna, British Columbia and recently we have had a run of bad luck, you could say. Before I returned from a trip to Winnipeg and Red Deer last Sunday, July 19th, I was told that some forest fires had ignited in the Kelowna area. Being as fires raged near the city 6 years prior, I figured that these most recent fires would be well out of town, not a threat to anyone in the area as well as they would be contained in a short amount of time. This was not the case.

In fact, the first fire that started was in an area on the west side of Okanagan Lake called West Kelowna or formerly known as Westbank in a neighborhood called Glenrosa and given the recent string of incredibly hot, dry weather, the area was a matchbox just waiting to be lit. Within the first day of that fire many houses were destroyed and a large amount of people lost their homes.

As I landed that afternoon, I looked out the right side window of the plane and got a perspective of how big this fire was. It was MASSIVE!! Not only that but now there was a new fire that was started about 5 miles away from the Glenrosa fire in an area called Rose Valley.

As I exited the airport, you could smell the burnt wood everywhere. You could see the smoke that hung over the city like a thick fog. People were wearing masks to filter out the smoke and toxins that may be in the air. I felt terrible. As I arrived home, I could see directly across the lake with a clear view of the Glenrosa fire, which was being doused with water and fire retardant from an army of airplanes, as well as the Rose Valley fire that was also being fought.

I watched for hours as planes would circle overhead of the fire, swoop down and drop the retardant and speed off to get a refill as fast as they could to come back and do it all over again. Several helicopters flew directly over my head, on their way to the fires, carrying the large buckets. One after another, for hours on end they would go back and forth, back and forth. Into the evening and overnight they would go. Ashes were falling all around us like a light snowfall and the threat to us was that if even one of those cinders was to fall that even had a hint of flame to it, that's all it would take for our neighborhood to be the next to go up in a ball of flame.

At one point, around 11pm, I sat out on my deck and stared at the orange glow at the top of the mountain as the light undulated skyward every few seconds. Similar to what sunbursts look like on Discovery Channel. I was in awe and couldn't help but think of the helpless people that had their lives turned upside down by one person’s stupidity- as they ruled that the fire was started by “human error”, they called it. Basically, someone either forgot to put out a campfire, threw a cigarette butt on the ground or deliberately started it. Terrible.

The next morning I walked out on that same front deck and was amazed, yet again, at what I saw. From where the Glenrosa and Rose Valley fires were to the left of my patio, now there was a massive plume of dark, black smoke rising to my right. This was the beginning of the Terrace Mountain fire or also known as the "Fintry" fire after the area that has a cluster of houses on it on the east side of the mountain along the lake. Try to grasp the idea of how big this smoke cloud was... it looked as thought it shot up straight into the sky about 25,000 feet and then blew down the entire stretch of the lake. You would have to see it to believe it. I took pictures, which will be attached, that can give you a little bit better perspective. Within hours of the first sight of smoke from Fintry, the whole lake and valley were blanketed in smoke. I couldn't even see the other side of the lake, it was so bad, and to think that we were breathing that air in was repugnant. I really feel bad for those people with respiratory issues, older folks, animals and little children during these smoky times.

Although the Fintry fire was not really affecting homes at the time, the warning this morning was that it could hit homes as early as this afternoon... and then came the evacuation notice. At noon Pacific, an evacuation notice was issued for about 3000 people. This really gets to me. People have to leave their homes not knowing if they even have one to come back to once the evacuation is lifted. Several families in Glenrosa didn't get to come back to much other than a pile of burnt wood and bricks. Terrible. I really do feel for these families.

For those fortunate enough to have their homes untouched by the flames, an act of human selfishness occurred that has as much an effect as the fire would have. If you can believe it, some homes were actually looted while they were left vacant!! Those people that did that are low-life scum of the earth and deserve nothing less than the worst lives for the REST of their lives! What is wrong with some people these days? How can someone be so heartless and not care even the slightest nor have sympathy for the people whom were close to losing everything to a fire. And feel the urge to benefit off of someone else's potentially dire situation, to have some idiot break into their home and steal what is rightfully not theirs? You people that did that are an embarrassment to the human race!

Needless to say, I suppose, the point of this story wasn't just to give you a rundown of how I saw the fires but more for me to say that although I managed to have great news given to me one day, there are bigger issues in the world around me than an award nomination. That award, (although extremely meaningful to me as an entertainer, which I take all the pride in the world being, and is something that I would receive with pride if I were to win it because it's a reflection of how much the fans enjoy the show I put on) cannot put out a fire.

Please help where you can for those people in the Kelowna area that lost everything. Some possessions cannot be replaced but helping out with those that can be is a greatly appreciated. Even small things will go a long way.

Go to www.cityofkelowna.com and donate what you can.

Thank you!
Aaron