West Kelowna fire evacuees robbed

At least two homes of evacuees who had to leave West Kelowna in the B.C. Interior because of forest fires have been robbed, CBC News has learned.

Large parts of the Okanagan district were evacuated Saturday because of forest fires. Two fires in the Rose Valley and Glenrosa areas of West Kelowna were almost fully contained by Tuesday evening, and the bulk of the roughly 11,000 residents who were forced out of their homes were allowed to return home.

Wayne Desabrais found out that the doors of his home had been breached and his computers stolen despite assurances he got from police that the area would be heavily patrolled.

"It's not usually ... what they take; it's what they break and the damage they do," he said Tuesday.

Desabrais said he is not sure how the crooks got to his home.

"They supposedly had [the road] secure," he said. "How anybody even gets up this road? 'Cause this is a dead-end road, you know? ... They think they maybe came up around the back side in quads or walking or who knows?"

Another house belonging to a single mother was also robbed. She reportedly lost electronics and gaming equipment.

Police were also looking at three condominiums to assess whether they were broken into or whether firefighters had entered them during the course of battling the blaze.