The Decibel - What it’s like to flee the B.C. wildfires

Episode Date: August 13, 2026

Summerland, B.C., has been devastated by the Bald Range wildfire. More than 20,000 people have evacuated, and by Wednesday, it had burned 178 square kilometres. The evacuees don’t know when they can return home yet, and many don’t know if their home is standing at all. Today, we bring you conversations with people on the ground about how they fled the fast-moving wildfire, and how they’re coping with uncertainty and loss. Questions? Comments? Ideas? Email us at [e-mail] Hosted by Simplecast, an AdsWizz company. See pcm.adswizz.com for information about our collection and use of personal data for advertising.

The Bald Range wildfire is tearing through southern British Columbia. The small community of Summerland has been hardest hit, and the fire has spread throughout the area, which is in the Okanagan, south of Colonna. It's been one of the largest and fastest growing wildfires in BC this year, and has forced over 20,000 people to evacuate their homes. One woman has died. Within the first three hours of the fire's discovery, on Friday, August 7th, it tore through 50 square kilometers.

That's equivalent to more than 9,000 football fields. Then, it doubled in size on Saturday. By Wednesday afternoon, it had burned 178 square kilometers. The evacuees don't know when they can return home, or whether they'll have a home to return to. Today, we're talking to some of the people most affected by the fire, about what it was like to flee, sometimes with just a few moments notice, and how they're coping with the uncertainty and loss.

I'm Cheryl Sutherland, and this is the decibel from the Globe and Mail. Hello. Hi, Brandon. Yes, speaking. Hi, it's Cheryl. Thanks so much for doing this. My name is Brandon Bishop. My wife is Elora Bishop.

In our daughter area. And our daughter area bishop. and we are all located in Fowler, which is just out of the summerland. I got home from work, about 4.30-ish, and then I got a text message from my friend saying that there was a fire on the backroad. He was just on his way back from working further out there.

And I made the decision that I would drive up top and check it out. And when I got up there, I talked to the wildfire service and asked him which direction it was kind of heading. And he let me know. And I called the wife and told her that it's time to start packing. That would be leaving the house pretty quick. How would you describe what the fire looked like when you were deciding that it's time to pack up and go?

When it was at the top of the hill, it was really windy up top. And it felt like it was pushing it towards the homes. So I had a bad feeling that it was going to move pretty fast. We just started packing, and I thought we would have more time. I didn't think we were only going to have as little time as we did, but. How much time did you have? About 40 minutes by the time I got home. Oh, my God, 40 minutes to pack up as much as you can.

Yeah, it was my wife's childhood home, so she'd been there for 23 years. So it's tough to pick and choose what's your pick at that stage. We grabbed a handful of clothes each, a handful of stuff for our daughter. diaper then we also have five rectiles two dogs and a cat so we have to get them out and all of their stuff to survive then we got our important paperwork and a few keepsakes each and that was about it about halfway through packing up the truck i could start to see flames at the very top of the hill behind us shooting up through the candling trees so i just started yelling like we don't have very much time we have to get going here i think it was ten minutes later the flames were coming down the hill. I was thinking, oh my God, we're actually going to lose the house. I knew right then watching them come down the mountain that we weren't going to stay the house. We had a sprinkler up on the roof and hose is going, but it was coming too fast and too hot. And this is your

childhood home? Yeah, we moved out there when I was eight years old. I moved out three three as an adult, and then when I moved back in, they renovated the base and interstate. When me and Brandon got together, he moved in with us when we had a baby girl. Yeah, tell me about your baby. her name's area she's eight weeks old how is she doing she was a joint through it all well the sheer panic of us running around yelling trying to figure out what we're grabbing keeping the dog safe and the cat safe and we she just slept she slept the whole time is unbelievable i guess that's one of the things about newborns they do sleep through a lot yeah yeah yeah grateful for that yeah it wasn't until we got her in the car seat and brought her outside and i think the smoke hit her and then she just screamed and screamed until she felt all asleep. I understand that you went back to the house to grab something. Can you tell me about that? I did. I got down the street probably like six houses away and I realized I hadn't brought

my frozen breast milk that I had for my daughter. So I stopped and I went back to the house to grab it. And of course, you know, when you have a newborn, that's a very important thing to have. Yes. Yeah. Especially because stress can affect your production. So I was concerned with all stress of this that my production might dip and I would need that milk. So you went back to the house. So I went back to the house. You got the newie in front of me.

Like, what are you doing? And I got it out. It was even just in the five minutes it took for me to leave and come back. Like the fire was right across the driveway from my house now at the back of the house. And it was even worse, like the breathing, the smoke. It was just so black and soot and ember is falling. So you left. Do you know what happened to your home?

It's gone. All the homes are gone. Oh, my God. We've heard rumors that six survive. I've seen photos of four. So where are you now? We're currently in West Colonna, staying with my childhood best friend's parents. How's that been going?

It's been amazing. They're awesome. They love our animals. All our animals are here running around, and they're great with the baby, and it's been a real blessing. We're doing as well as we can be. sad, but there's been an amazing outpouring of support from all the people that love us, and we really feel that. Hello, is this Sean Campbell?

This is. Sean Campbell's farm, Campbell Creek Ranch, is on the outskirts of Summerland. So we raise beef, chickens, we sell our eggs, and then we have three horses there. There's a couple of dogs, a cat, and 23 cows as of right now, so I have a ball, and then I have my 10 cows, And we raised the beef and then we sell just kind of a farm stand. People come home and buy hamburger and we sell eggs from our fridge. Sean's property is 20 acres, including three homes, one that he lives in with his wife and three children, one for his parents, and a guest house.

It includes flat, irrigated land, and it stretches up into a pine forest and mountain range. So it burnt all the way to my fence line. It jumped my 10 acres of irrigated over Gardner Valley Road, and then burnt the whole both south side on the other side. So it came down over top of the mountain right to our house, jumped our property, and then burned the mountain 10 acres on the other side. And not all that was with ambers and stuff. Like it was raining ash and, you know, the little sparking tree ambers and whatever else was coming. So those are the ones that we were putting out mostly because they're just landing everywhere and there starting fires.

Sean's wife, his mom and his kids went to Penticton, around 18 kilometers south of Summerland. Sean and his dad, Marty, say to fight the fire themselves and try to save the farm. For me, it's my only income. And so as far as providing, that would be pretty important. We've been there nine years, and I don't know, kids grew up there. I got three of them, and that's all they really know. And that's our own little piece of paradise that we felt we had to stay and protect

and make sure all the animals are okay. And we got lucky if we were able to fight the fire at the red doorstep of her house. Staying behind meant going against mandatory evacuation orders. And so when the cops came, they came and they said it's a mandatory evacuation. I said, I don't want to get arrested. I'm not looking for trouble, but what's the rule here? Because we would like to take. He's like, we can't force here.

We're suggesting everybody leaves. I'm like, my mom and sister are taking my kids. It's just going to be the two of us sticking around. We're just going to wait to see what happens. Is that going to be okay? I think when the officer kind of says, okay, I've told you to leave. Now, if anything goes wrong, like, we're not coming back to get you pretty much. Like, don't call.

Oh, we're on fire. Like, help. Like, get back to you. Like, pretty much, here's your last chance. If you want to stay and do whatever, then good luck and see you later. And so we decided to stay. And so we set up our irrigation guns on the back side of the property along the forest side. And four big, massive cannons that were pumping out a lot of water.

Water cannons are giant pumps that are used to irrigate farmlands. And then we had the hoses out in the backyard. We turned on all irrigation and buckets of water. And they could burn right to our fence, which would be on up 20 feet from our house. And that treatment is what we were fighting the most. And luckily, it didn't candle right there is just kind of ground burn. And so we were able to put the fires out on the trunks before they actually hit the pine needles and then flare it up. And once that was secure there, then most of it was honestly driving around on the property

because the hambres are flying everywhere, and there'd be spot fires. For an example, like in the middle of the property, a fence post started on fire. And so we actually had to go over there for a bucket of water, and one fence post in the middle of 10-acre green grass, that one fence post would start a fire. So I remember that one, too, because you look out here,

like, well, how the heck did that happen? So when you say garden hose, like I have a picture of a garden hose that I have in my backyard. Is it the same thing? Yep, thumb over the end of it, spraying. That was, you know, we had two. of those two garden hoses and one of those white 10-gallon buckets that we have in the little kiddie's backyard pool we had filled with water just because that's what they were swimming in and we were

just scoop water from that and put out the fire for them sounds crazy but that's what it was and it was working yeah we saved all the structure we saved all the animals uh we lost that forest part back there but our houses are standing no damage at all and so there's time you put the hose on you just because you could feel some of the sparks coming. Hot, like, I don't remember feeling, like, crazy amount of heat. Like, it was warm, but I think with the hose there and put it on us, it kind of took away from the shock of maybe that heat. But the sound, that would be something that, you know, like that jet engine coming down

that hill was when you hear people talk about the sound of a fire, like, that was pretty alarming with the trees going off. And then in the distance, our neighbor's house burnt down, and you could hear, like, his house was completely damaged. and I don't know if it's propane tanks or when it hits gas pockets or whatever else, like the sounds of explosions and stuff. Those are the ones that stand out on a night

that I don't remember a lot, but definitely remember the sound of the fire and then explosions from neighboring properties. What were you thinking when you saw this fire approaching your property? Yeah, what was going through your mind? Were you scared? Thinking back on it, I probably should have been more scared, but at the time, I don't know if it's adrenaline or...

So we knew... It wasn't so much life and death, I guess, at that time, or it's like, okay, let's just fight until we put this out. If we feel like something's really going sideways, let's get out of here. And we did our best. And I don't know how we got the upper hand with two garden hoses against that big beast, but somehow we got lucky and it just burned out right at our feet.

So what are you going to do next? Like, is there anything that would make you leave? Like evacuation-wise? Yeah. I don't think so. Like I said, if it's life or death, I'm leaving. If there's a chance where I feel like I can take care of, you know, the property, some chance to me leaving anywhere for that cause.

We'll be right back. Talking to people in the area, we kept hearing over and over about how fast this fire came in. So many people had just a few minutes to grab as much as they could and then get out before the flames engulfed their neighborhoods and their homes. My wife was at home, my son was at home, and his home. He lost his ghost, dude. They called me at about 5.15, I think somewhere around there. I was just coming home from Antigden.

They said the fire, or did someone come and knocked on the door of our house and said there's a fire behind you guys? That was about three and a half, four kilometers away from us. That's Joe Wagner. His home was in Fowlder, northwest of Summerland. It was about 15 minutes for me to get home. I got home, pulled up the driveway, and the planes were right at the back of our house. Like, it just raced.

It just raced there. Almost beat me home. I lost everything all I got where our pets and a water bomber flew over my house. Right when I pulled up and got out of the van. He dropped retarding on my house and the neighbors. I grabbed as many pets as I could. And then I was looking for the other cat. A second bomber came through

Hit us again I found the cat And the RCMP had pulled in To the neighborhood then And just said you guys have to move I sent my wife off in her car And my son and his And as I pulled out of the driveway

And got down to the bottom of the hill Getting back into Summerland It's gone through our neighborhood And already headed down into Fish Lake Road I have a dog and three cats got all the pets. Everybody is safe. All the pets, my son and his wife got their pets. They had a little more time. I think they grabbed a few more things, but not that much. It just took everything.

Joe's mom passed away just a month earlier, and her ashes were inside the home. I didn't even have a chance to get their ashes out of the house. Like, that's devastating me from them. And anything is it there was no time. There's just no time. We've been there 21 years. I raised four kids there. My son was born in that house.

It's just everything. There's so much there. We will rebuild. It's going to take years, but I'm a house contractor. I build homes. and my sons work with me and we're just going to work together and help all our neighbors and friends

that are ready and willing to rebuild. I don't even know if how that's going to turn out with only a couple of homes left standing in that whole community. I don't know if they were going to get rebuilt. Joe has lost a lot. But when asked what he thinks the public needs to hear, his thoughts went to first responders. I think a lot.

Credit needs to be given to the people that are risking their lives to save us because I keep hearing all these insulting comments on what should have been done and where things should have gone. And I just, that bothers me to think, you know, those people are doing what they can and they reacted so well. They tried their best to save our lives. So I live in the regional district of Okinawanaugan-Sumilkamee Area F, which is the communities of rules.

Summerland, Fowler, and Meadow Valley, directly behind Summerland and it's ground zero of the Baldwin Range Fire. That's Joel Patton. I can hear some emotion in your voice there. Like, this is, this was really bad. Yeah, it's, to be fully honest with you, this is, yeah, this is, this is really bad. To be honest, there are 100, well, I'm going to say minimum. 50 plus 100 homes,

my area has been decimated. When the fire first started approaching Joel's house, he was in Penn Tickton, getting ready for a local festival. Penn Tickton, we have a festival called Peach Fet, and I'm one of the sponsors of Peach Fest. It's one of the biggest events there, and we actually just, it was my dad's birthday, so I went in, you know, we bought him a gift there at the mall,

and I was picking up a boom box for our parade float because we're going to be doing the parade in the, the morning and yeah i got a message saying hey joel there's a fire like and you know i was like hey well start making my way home because you know we've had fires in our areas before but i looked up and there was a plume of smoke and i said uh oh and yeah i put her pedal to the metal uh to uh to get to get to my house there he sped home in 20 minutes way faster than usual i got home and my my wife and kids were packing up and i have a five five-year-old daughter and a three-year-old daughter.

Oh, my goodness. You know, dad and my wife's tough with little kids like that. Yeah, I'm very proud of my wife. She, you know, she kept it together, kept it calm. You know, my five-year-old knew there was danger and she was having a hard time. But, you know, I said to worry, you know, hey, dad's not scared. You're not scared. This is, you know, precaution.

We, you know, we calmly, you know, took an extra 10, 50 minutes, make sure my wife and, you know, the girl got into the car. Joel describes a stressful scene with vehicles of all manner, from small ATVs to heavy equipment trucks and trailers flying down the road. It wasn't going after the fire. It was you need to get out of this fire because you're straight in the way. The RCMP are screaming at me like it's coming, like go, go, go. And yeah, we peeled out of there with flames, you know,

licking at our property line. And here's the crazier thing. We didn't get the evacuation. I was still about probably 20 minutes after. my house burned, which is an hour too late for the rest of my community. There was no warning that there was no, you know, it was reported if you ever look on BC wildfire, I think it was reported at like 546, Fowler was gone by 630. I was on my house was probably gone by 7.15 and I don't think we got on alert to like

730, 8 o'clock, maybe even later. When I mean minutes, it was minutes. What do you think about that part that you didn't get an evacuation order until, I mean, you had left, but your house was already burned down? Well, you know, it's unprecedented, right? It was an unprecedented event. You know, as I say, our area is very dry. We have actually water security issues actually in our area, so we didn't have any fire protection or anything as well. Joel's community doesn't have a fire department.

You know, the district of Summerland actually, so like the district of Summerland, a boundary from my house is about 200 meters, but technically the fire department is not allowed to cross that because that is the district of Summerland. That is their fire department. The RDOS, the regional is security, which I'm from. We don't have a dedicated fire service for our area.

So we basically have no fire protection, no nothing we rely. If there was fire, we rely on BC. service, wildfire service, and that's pretty much all we do. Now, the district would have probably acted, but to be honest, it was a, it was a firestorm. And, you know, there's just, it was get out of the way. Water is a huge issue that in our area. Our area is actually known for a little bit of water scarcity. But even like my house here, I ran a water for three days. We're, because my well ran dry, because we're in a drought level five here.

So part of it is talking about, you know, when we rebuild, how are we going to be a better fire smart community? Joel owns an HVAC company in Penticton. He's opened up the upstairs of his business to collect donations for people that have lost everything. We were giving them shopping bags and we're giving them toilet trees and clothes and we're trying to, you know, kit, like especially with the kids. So, like, you know, I had to tell my daughters on Saturday.

day then, you know, I'm sorry, her house is gone. Everything that you cherish, beds, you imagine, up five years old, six years old, and Blake at three, you know, toys are their world, right? Santa brings toys. Yeah, right?

Yeah, so basically we've gone donations for strollers, um, beds, cribs, toys, stuffies. So what we're trying to do, even though we're facing, you know, this uncertain near, ourselves and we know we've lost a lot. We know that there's more. So we've just kind of opened our doors to create, you know, a sense of community and make sure that whoever needs anything,

we're making sure that they're getting it and we're making sure that, you know, we can provide, you know, a sensitive house seat for children for kids. We're trying to help whoever we can. As you can imagine, fleeing a fire is chaotic. A big question is, where do you? you go when your house is not safe or has completely burned down? Think about tens of thousands of people, all forced from their homes in a hurry, many using the same roads to get to safety. Lisa Koalski was amidst the chaos. We don't know what happened to her home, but both of her daughter's houses burned down. We left about 1.130, I guess it was, in the morning to drive to Penticton because I understand the other way to go in towards Colonna was the highway

was blocked off so we only had one way to get out towards Pintechton. It took us two and a half hours to get to Pintycton, which is normally a 20 minute, 50 minute car ride. That's how many people were on the road trying to get out. We were bumper to bumper, maybe driving 10, 20 kilometers an hour. the emergency center here in Penticton at the conference center. I mean, there's food. There's even supplies, personal supplies that you could take.

There's even food for the dogs and cats. I understand SPCA here is giving out stuff for animals. Lisa spoke to our senior producer on Monday, and he called her back on a better line. I can tell you, though, the people here, though, are fantastic. It felt like chaos at first, because it was just so many people needed help. But they got through it all.

It just took a couple of days. And now it's more organized because a lot of people got help. I find Summerland, the people there are, everyone's helpful with each other. And I see it even more now. And I met so many people here waiting in line that were so helpful and had sad stories just like us. I'm Christine Coletta. I've been in the BC wine industry for 35 years. My husband and I are the owners of Haywire Winery

and Garnet Valley Ranch Winery, both in Summerland. Christine was sitting down to dinner with some friends when they saw smoke coming towards them. We've practiced fire safety with our team all the time and I hope we never have to put it to play. But we did it on Friday and we were ready. We got all our team out. We have 10 people that live on our property that was right in the eye of the fire.

And so they are all safe. And we went into high gear mode and shut the property down as best we could. Tried to protect our equipment. And most importantly, get everyone with a few personal belongings off the site. Christine's 320-acre property is vulnerable to fires. It's surrounded by crown land. and there's no structures on three sides of the property to protect it from incoming flames.

That's why she had a comprehensive fire prevention plan. So we have fire hydrants along the top part of our property. We installed a big huge pond, which act in the reservoir pool, but it's also a beautiful place for wildlife and people to enjoy. We have green spaces with large half acre of grass. We keep that mode and wet, and that's a place where we can converge people or animals or equipment in the need of moving things out of harm's way. I have never seen anything move so quickly, and it really is in tandem with how dry this season has been from a lack of snowpack to a lack of rain all the way through. And you can just see everything drying up, and it has been a tender box waiting to happen.

And so it was fast. And everything that was fast was the immediate response. We saw helicopters with buckets and planes coming in to hit the fire, water bombers circling around, and they were there immediately. But even with all of that, it got out of control. Christine says she doesn't know the extent of the damage. Some of the structures on the property are gone. But all the animals and people are accounted for. On that last point, the people, Christine really stresses how important they are to her.

When they evacuated, everyone scattered to different towns. Some of them went to Kelowna, and then others are as far down as the Soyas. We have seven temporary foreign workers who are from Mexico, and these guys spend eight months of the year with us. They're like our family. And we immediately took them to our own house, and everyone was. was hunkered down there. And then we were evacuated from there. So they went to Koston, which is a town about two hours away. And they are on a peach orchard with a swimming pool and a household of food. All the rest of the employees are scattered around in various towns.

And we are meeting tonight at the house that friends have went to us so that 16 of us can get together and have a meal. A local chef cooked for the group on Monday night. just the fact that we get to be together and somebody who's graciously preparing a meal for a meal flash at is just like overwhelming. At a news conference on Tuesday, BC officials said that firefighting conditions

were expected to improve and 100 firefighters arrived from Mexico to help. More than 13,000 people were receiving emergency support. Officials said it was too soon to update residents with details about the state of their homes.

There's a huge amount that we have to look at of how we rebuild, you know, water security, water sourcing, and also, you know, interworking of our districts. That's Joel Patton again, the man who lives in an area with no fire service. This is a show that we need to have the government, federal, provincial, municipal, like everyone's got to get on the same page of we cannot have a community like all or only eight minutes from downtown. summerland, eight minutes. And it had no fire protection, no nothing. And one fire decimated that rural area. It decimated homes in Summerland in the district and traveled tens of kilometers to the highway and in all within one night. Sometimes I'm quite emotional about it. This is Lisa Kowalski, who told us about the evacuation to Penticton. Most important to me is my children. and their homes and my grandchildren and what's going to happen to them after, what's the process.

Like, it's just, I know, it's just overwhelming. Tell me a truth. And just to get back to normal, I don't know, ever be normal for a long time, I guess, mainly because of my children. And funding for firefighters and first responders, I think they were, cut back, and I don't think that's right. Garnet Valley Ranch is like a spectacular little valley. And every time I go to our property, I just, I feel so peaceful and happy.

That's Christine, who owns two wineries. And going there and sitting there and watching and looking over what we've created has always been a joyful moment for me. So after worrying about my people and making sure that they're okay, it was the, the the loss of that spectacular natural beauty of the area, which I know from past experiences in 2017 and 2018, within a few years, it will all be back. It's amazing how quickly everything restores. It's almost like when a fire goes through something, there's renewed energy coming back into the land. And that is what I'm going to be focusing on is the day that I can

go back out to the property and look around and be joyful and thankful. Here's Brandon and Alora Bishop again, the couple who fled with her newborn. With the wildfires, the way they are, it's just, I don't know, it's just the way of life now, I guess. It's just kind of terms with it in the Okinawagon, the smoking hog and always smoky in the summertime. It's not the first time our home has been threatened. No. The first time it's come this bad, though. Right, so you're just getting used to this.

Yeah. Yeah. Unfortunately, it is always overskirts out in the Okinawans. Yeah. And what are you thinking about for your daughter? We're grateful that she's as young as she is, and she won't remember losing her home and everything she has. And we're just going to rebuild and rebuy and...

I'll do it before she remembers it. Recollect all of her toys and books and clothes that we had for her. Well, I think that's such a positive attitude to have in such a tough time. But, you know, like you talked about your community, you're so close, there seems like so much resiliency there. So that's really wonderful to hear. Paula will survive either way. Okay, and take care and hope everything, you know, I wish you the best.

Thank you. Thank you. We appreciate all the support. Yes, very much. Okay, take care. That's all for today. I'm Cheryl Sutherland. Thank you to everyone who spoke to us,

as well as our colleagues, to Moore Durrani, Matthew Frank, Ome Sean Bog and Andrea Wu for their reporting. Our producers are Madeline White, Rachel Levy McLaughlin and Mikhail Stein. Our editor is David Crosby. Adrian Chung is our senior producer, and Angela Pichenza is our executive editor. Thanks so much for listening.