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“There’s probably very few wildfires that did what this wildfire did”
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Kelly Selman spent Saturday night packing up her family and her farm near Shuswap Lake while a wildfire B.C. authorities called one of the “most explosive” in recent history raced down the mountainside next to her home.
The roar of the fire “sounded like a 747 jet,” Selman said. “It was terrifying.”
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Selman, her husband and her mother packed up 10 goats, 11 chickens, four dogs and “a couple personal items” as they fled their home while the mountain behind them burned.
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“It felt like we were leaving a war zone,” she said.
Two fast-moving fires near Shuswap Lake in southeastern B.C. merged on Saturday night and swept through nearby communities, destroying homes and forcing evacuations from nearly five thousand properties.
Selman said they had to take back roads because the bridge on the main highway was closed by the time they had everything loaded up.
They spent the night in neighbouring Seymour Arm, where she said a local put them up in a cabin for the night.
“Our goats slept under a deck,” Selman said.
Forrest Tower, a fire information officer with B.C. Wildfire Service, said the Bush Creek fire exhibited “very, very intense, extreme fire behaviour.”
He said while a significant fire would typically move 12 to 15 kilometres per day, the Bush Creek fire “moved 20 kilometres south in under 12 hours.”
“There’s probably very few wildfires that did what this wildfire did,” Tower said.
Selman described navigating downed power lines and burning trees while heading back into the evacuation zone to deliver supplies with her husband when Postmedia reached her the day after the fire swept across her community.
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“There’s spot fires everywhere,” she said, adding that a general store located right off the highway was destroyed by the fire.
“It burned right down to nothing,” she said.
It was her second trip back into the evacuation zone since they fled on Saturday night. Selman and her husband documented their first trip after the initial evacuation to check on their home, which, fortunately, was undamaged.
“We wanted to let people know what’s going on with the communities,” she said of their initial decision to return to the evacuation zone. “Good or bad, not knowing is absolutely the worst.”
Tower said visibility on the first day of the fire was initially limited to less than half-a-mile.
“It really limited our ability to do anything,” he said.
Since then, helicopters, air tankers and firefighters have been able to start work, though Tower noted that the complex nature of the fire meant there were “a lot of moving pieces.”
“This is going to be a very challenging fire,” he said. “It’s still an active, full-tree consumption fire.”
“This is going to be one of the most challenging fires this summer to deal with.”
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A look at the number of wildfires and evacuations in B.C.
Size of Bush Creek East fire on west side of Adams Lake: 410 square kilometres
Size of McDougall Creek fire in West Kelowna: 110 square kilometres
Size of Kookipi Creek fire near Lytton: 105 square kilometres
Estimated total number of people under evacuation orders: 30,000 or more
Estimated number of people under evacuation alerts: 36,000
Number of firefighters working in West Kelowna: 500
Population of West Kelowna: approximately 38,000 people
Number of central Okanagan properties ordered to evacuate: about 10,700
Number of central Okanagan properties on evacuation alert: about 9,500
Number of structures damaged or destroyed: “Significant”
Number of wildfires burning in B.C.: 382
Number of B.C. wildfires considered “of note” because they are highly visible or threatening public safety: 14
B.C. Wildfires: No missing persons reported in Kelowna fires | At least 14 homes destroyed in West Kelowna | 35,000 people on evacuation order Check back here for all the latest news on the situation as it unfolds.
Kelowna wildfire evacuees unsure if they’ll have a home to go back to
@njgriffithsngriffiths@postmedia.com
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