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Apex area farm calls for help in evacuating animals amid Keremeos Creek wildfire

Gotta Goat Farm on Green Mountain Road is currently evacuating all of its animals
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GottaGoat Farm on Penticton’s Green Mountain Road has evacuated its animals, amid wildfire concerns. (Photo- GottaGoat Facebook)

A farm near the community of Apex is asking for the public’s help as they evacuate all of its animals amid the Keremeos Creek wildfire.

Gotta Goat, located on Penticton’s Green Mountain Road, took to Facebook on Thursday afternoon looking for people who can bring their trailers to help with the evacuation.

Since Aug. 1, the farm has been on evacuation alert, not order. As of Thursday, however, owners say now is the time to evacuate their animals and leave the area.

“While they were doing the work on the hay shed we noticed gigantic plumes of smoke behind the mountain behind us,” the farm wrote on Facebook. “We are hoping this was part of the planned burn this afternoon, but we’re not sure. One of the specialists said that the smoke is still a good distance away. A small amount of reassurance, but still scary.”

The fire surpassed 4,250 hectares in size by the end of Wednesday, prompting additional evacuation orders on 41 properties along Highway 3A in Olalla.

Since its call for help on Thursday afternoon, GottaGoat has seen an overwhelming response from the community via Facebook.

Currently a total of 175 firefighters and an additional 170 structural protection personnel are working the blaze.

Later on Thursday afternoon, the Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen added 38 properties around Farleigh Lake and Marron Valley to the evacuation alert list.

READ MORE: Farleigh Lake and Marron Lake added to Keremeos Creek Wildfire evacuation alerts

READ MORE: New evacuation orders near Olalla as Keremeos Creek wildfire continues to grow


@lgllockhart
logan.lockhart@pentictonwesternnews.com