The charred hills surrounding Lake Okanagan in the B.C. Interior will likely look very different in a year’s time and beyond as life returns to the wildfire-ravaged landscape, ecologists predict.
An eruption of low plants, grasses, and shrubs will turn the hills green. Birds and small mammals, as well as deer and bears, will return to feast on berries and other plant life. Carnivores including cougars could move in.
But the tall trees destroyed by the fires may never recover or return, said Robert Gray, a wildland fire ecologist.
“When you look at West Kelowna, it’s really rocky, steep ground and trees aren’t
