Highway 97 opens between Penticton and Peachland for \u2018through traffic only\u2019<\/p>\n
Published 11:26 am Thursday, August 13, 2026<\/p>\n
DriveBC says Highway 97 is opening between Penticton and Peachland for \u201cthrough traffic only\u201d as the region continues to contend with the out-of-control Bald Range wildfire.<\/p>\n
There will be no stopping in the area except for vehicles with approved permit holders at Prairie Valley Road, the provincial road service said.<\/p>\n
The stretch of highway will be open to public traffic from 7 a.m. to 7 p.m. to allow crews to access the site overnight.<\/p>\n
Speeds have also been reduced to 70 km\/h.<\/p>\n
The Regional District of Okanagan-Similkameen (RDOS) noted there is no access to enter any of the side roads in the area without a valid Temporary Access Pass at this time.<\/p>\n
\u201cIt took a lot of effort and planning on the part of numerous agencies, including the Ministry of Transportation and Transit, RCMP, RDOS, utility providers and the BC Wildfire Service to make the highway safe to re-open,\u201d the RDOS said in a release.<\/p>\n
The regional district added on Thursday: \u201cIf drivers do not obey all restrictions, the highway may need to be shut down for public traffic again.<\/p>\n
Highway 97 was fully closed in both directions last weekend after the Bald Range wildfire sparked west of Summerland.<\/p>\n
The blaze, which evacuated the entire community, is now more than 19,000 hectares in size and remains out of control.<\/p>\n
Around 20,000 people across the RDOS, District of Summerland and Penticton Indian Band are still under evacuation order.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Highway 97 opens between Penticton and Peachland for \u2018through traffic only\u2019 Published 11:26 am Thursday, August 13, 2026…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":857311,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[194299],"tags":[49,48,79004,87674,6090],"class_list":["post-857310","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-surrey","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-okanagan","tag-surrey","tag-wildfires"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857310","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=857310"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/857310\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/857311"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=857310"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=857310"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=857310"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}