‘It Was a Warzone:’ Survivors Describe Evacuating BC Wildfires

Brandon Bishop says he had only 40 minutes between hearing reports of a wildfire near his home in Faulder, B.C., and evacuating with his wife and two-month-old daughter.

Over 20,000 people have been ordered to evacuate due to the the Bald Range wildfire near Summerland and Peachland in B.C.’s Okanagan region, which is now reported to have grown to roughly 136.2 square kilometres.

“It felt like a war zone,” said Bishop, a framer who moved to the Okanagan about 10 years ago from Winnipeg. “We had 40 minutes from the time I was home to the time we left the door with the fire within about 200 feet of the house.”

‘We Have No More Time’

The B.C. Wildfire Service said there are currently over 100 active wildfires across the province. Meanwhile, the RCMP confirmed on Aug. 9 that an 80-year-old woman died as a result of the wildfire in the Summerland area as she was trying to flee the flames with a family member on Aug. 7.

Bishop said he heard about the fire after getting home from work on the afternoon of Aug. 7, after his wife Alora sent him a social media post about smoke around nearby homes. At roughly the same time he said a friend working nearby contacted him to say there was a fire in the area.

After driving up a hill 10 minutes away, Bishop said he saw the scale of the fire and observed that it looked like it was heading toward town. He called his wife and raced home.

“It was scary,” he said, recalling helicopters buzzing overhead. “I was screaming at my family, like, ‘It’s time to leave! Like, we have no more time.’”

Bishop said that he and his wife had time to load one pickup truck with necessary items and that some of the other residents had even less time as strong winds pushed the fire rapidly toward the tight-knit community of only a few hundred.

“The wind was roaring. It was hot,” he said. “They didn’t even do anything though. It was too fast of a moving fire.”

Bishop said he ran inside a neighbour’s home to help get things out as others in his neighbourhood also scrambled to evacuate, noting that many neighbours lost pets.

“There’s so many dogs and cats missing out there,” he said.

Officials said in an Aug. 8 update that search and rescue efforts were ongoing to airlift some residents who had been left behind. The province has declared a state of emergency, enabling it to commandeer accommodation or issue travel restrictions if a need for such measures arises.

Temporary Shelters

Yang Xinwen, a reporter with the Chinese edition of The Epoch Times, was in the Summerland area on Aug. 7 on vacation when the community received an alert to evacuate.

“The smoke in the air became increasingly intense,” Yang said. “An hour and a half’s drive from Summerland, the smoke in the air grew thicker, and fires became visible.”

Yang said some of the temporary shelters that were initially set up on Aug. 7 didn’t have beds, and people were sitting and resting in chairs while being served food and water. More temporary shelters with shower rooms were opened by Aug. 8, she said.

In one of the larger shelters in the area, Yang said she saw about seven or eight buses bring in senior citizens from nursing homes. Younger people tended to stay in their vehicles, she observed.

“People were very friendly to each other, and many were willing to help others, asking if they want to ride with them to the temporary shelters,” Yang said.

On Aug. 9, Yang said they saw more people bring clothes, blankets, and food for the evacuees.

Yang said when she asked the evacuees if they had prepared emergency kits, the vast majority said they hadn’t, with many saying they didn’t think danger was very imminent.

‘A Community Effort’

Bishop said he and his neighbours didn’t get an emergency alert before starting to evacuate, which left it up to them to organize instead.

“It was just a community effort,” Bishop said. “I’m driving down the road, honking horns, trying to yell out the window, like, ‘Start packing, everybody.’”

Conditions got worse as he and his family drove away, Bishop said, including very limited visibility.

“There was, I’d say, about a minute period where we couldn’t see the road,” Bishop said. “You couldn’t even see the tail lights in front of you pretty much. That’s how dark it was.”

Bishop said his infant daughter Airia had been sleeping as they scrambled to leave but woke up in the car and began crying as they inched ahead. They eventually reached the neighbourhood of Westbank near Kelowna and are now staying with family friends.

During the rushed evacuation, Bishop said they grabbed essentials, important documents, and a few keepsakes but weren’t able to bring much of what they had in the house, including months of supplies for Airia from a baby shower.

“You’re in such a panic to just—you kind of start grabbing,” he said, though noting a friend later brought the family a portable crib so Airia would have somewhere to sleep that night.

Although he and most of his neighbours lost their homes, Bishop is thankful that at least his home, which belongs to his in-laws, had home and contents insurance. However, he doesn’t know if their quads, sleds, and other such items will be covered by insurance.

Bishop said if he had been alerted a few minutes earlier, it could have made a big difference.

“Fifteen minutes for some people could have saved their dogs and their cats,” he said, noting that the evacuation had been the most frightening experience of his life.

“I’m not scared of a whole lot, but at that moment I was scared for my family more than anything,” he said. “I needed to get everybody out.”