Penticton, B.C., declares emergency and orders evacuations after fire guts care site

The City of Penticton has declared a local state of emergency after a massive fire at the site of a long-term care home triggered the evacuation of multiple properties.

The city says the fire at 453 Green Avenue was reported around 10 p.m. Wednesday at the construction site for the three-storey wood-frame structure.

The blaze quickly escalated into a three-alarm fire, triggering a response from 60 firefighters.

The city said Thursday that it had activated its emergency operations centre and is issuing an updated evacuation order for 10 properties around the site of the fire.

It says the presence of an unstable crane used in the construction process at the site continues to pose a safety risk.

Health Minister Josie Osborne said the fire will reset the project, and is “devastating” to seniors in the region.

The destruction of the 200-bed project is another potential blow to the supply of long-term care beds in B.C. after the government cancelled construction contracts on several care-home projects earlier this year.

Osborne says the fire will require “coming back with a sense of urgency” to build more long-term care homes quickly.

Fire crews initially evacuated 16 homes in anticipation of the fire’s spread, with four sustaining damage, and the city says residents outside of the evacuation area are free to return home.

No one was injured.

Highway 97 near the fire site is open with single lane traffic in each direction, and the city said people flying out of Penticton Airport should allow extra time due to road closures and delays.

The construction of the long-term care home is a partnership between the B.C. government and Kaigo Senior Living.

The project, called the Skaha Seniors Community, was expected to be completed in 2028.

Infrastructure Minister Bowinn Ma also said the fire was devastating, both for residents who had to evacuate their homes, as well as seniors waiting to move in.

Ma said Kaigo Senior Living had submitted an insurance claim in relation to the fire, but it was unclear how much the claim was worth.

“Our government will work with them to understand the impacts on the timeline,” Ma said, adding that it’s too early to understand how the fire will affect the planned 2028 opening.

Ma said the project was about six months into construction, and was considered to be in the early stage, with only the building’s framing completed.

“We’re committed to ensuring that this project gets built,” she said.

Wait-list data from Interior Health as of May 13 shows that six of nine long-term care homes in Penticton have an average wait of at least six months.

BC Seniors Advocate Dan Levitt says the fire means Penticton seniors will have to wait even longer to access long-term care, leaving the responsibility of their care to family members.

“Because we haven’t built enough long-term care beds in our province, the burden has shifted from government to family members who are really pushed on the brink, on the edge,” he said in a phone interview Thursday.

Levitt has criticized the province for not expanding capacity of long-term care homes, and said that seniors are spending more time in hospitals on wait-lists for long-term care beds as demand outpaces supply.

A January report from his office on long-term care said B.C. saw a five per cent increase in the number of beds since 2019-2020, while the population of seniors over age 65 grew by 19 per cent over that time.

Levitt said the province will need 16,000 more long-term care beds in the next 10 years to catch up, but added the B.C. government isn’t equipped to meet the demand.

“We don’t have any plans to build long-term care past five years from now. And with the cancellation of contracts for several projects recently, we need essential urgency in our province to build long-term care wherever seniors are,” Levitt said.

In April, the B.C. government confirmed the cancellation of the Beedie Long-term Care Centre in Delta, as well as long-term care projects in Abbotsford, Chilliwack and Kelowna, citing financial constraints.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published May 28, 2026.

Wolfgang Depner and Marissa Birnie, The Canadian Press