Photo: City of Kelowna

The City of Kelowna is hoping the province will come through with emergency funding for repairs needed at the Glenmore Landfill resulting from the wildfire in August.

Landfill manager Scott Hoekstra told council Monday the landfill requires up to $1.4 million to repair damage caused after the McDougall Creek wildfire jumped Okanagan Lake on the evening of Aug. 17.

"Noon the next day the fire jumped Glenmore Road and started about eight fires in 30 seconds on the hillside," said Hoekstra.

He says the Kelowna Fire Department and BC Wildifre took over fighting the initial grass fire while city staff and hired contractors helped out for the next week.

"There were two areas that were really affected with damage on the site. Landfill gas and some of the waste.

"We lost about a third of the landfill gas well heads. There was significant damage along the west side."

Hoekstra says the city received a lot of help from landfills across the region who accepted the city's waste while the landfill was down as well as the City of Vancouver who lent some staff and equipment to help get the gas system up and running.

The system is still only running at about 60 per cent efficiency.

"We are requesting up to $1.4 million be spent for the landfill gas repairs and to relocate some of the burnt debris on the site.

"We have an application into the province for disaster financial assistance which would cover up to 80 per cent of the eligible costs."

Hoekstra says things such as equipment and supplies would be covered as an eligible expense, however staff time and some hydroseeding and landscaping would not.

The work he says has to be done whether the province provides any funding or not.