evacuees consider uncertain future after harrowing escapes from b.c. wildfire
8 minute read
little remains of what the fungus mushroom farm after the bald range wildfire tore through. however, co-wner brian callows home nearby survived.
mick garnett
flames licked the fence ringing brian callow’s mushroom farm in summerland and smoke made it hard to see the sky.
it was early saturday, just after midnight, and the bald range fire was creeping ever closer.
after turning on his sprinklers, callow got in his truck with his dog and set out to join his wife faith and their daughters hadlee and harper who had already fled.
“the roaring sound of the fire and the winds picked up, and fire just started kind of coming down the mountain,” he recalled.
later that day, the owner of what the fungus got a text message from a neighbour.
“he drove by and immediately texts me and said ‘my farm’s gone,’ and i didn’t really understand what that meant. but later, i found out that, like, everything was gone — like the shop burned down, cars are all gone, you know, every single structure for the mushroom farm, my business partner’s home,” said callow.
“it’s all rubble.”
brian callow, his wife faith and their daughters hadlee and harper. callow, the owner of what the fungus mushroom farm in summerland, said the bald range wildfire destroyed the entire farm on friday.
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callow and his family are among the many south okanagan residents facing an uncertain future after a massive wildfire broke out friday, engulfing 160 square kilometres and forcing some 20,000 residents to flee their homes.
evacuation orders cover all of summerland and the community of faulder, as well as parts of peachland and penticton indian band reserve lands. the penticton rcmp confirmed sunday that an 80 year-old woman died while trying to flee her home in meadow valley.
there have been numerous reports of homes and businesses being lost in summerland and on lands belonging to the snpink’tn indian band but there have been no official estimates of how many structures have been lost or damaged.
the fire is out of control and has continued to grow, according to the b.c. wildfire service, with the northwestern and southern portions of the fire growing between one and 1.5 kilometres on sunday night.
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on monday, the penticton rcmp said they were investigating the cause of the fire and are looking for any witnesses who were around princeton-summerland road and bathville road on friday afternoon.
they also said they were aware of social media posts pointing the finger at an individual who set off a bear banger, similar to a firecracker that is used to deter wildlife, around the time the fire started. they said they have spoken to the individual and he is not considered a suspect as he was nowhere near where the fire originated.
“the public is cautioned against making false statements and to stop the continuation of misinformation on social media,” said the rcmp.
callow said he and an employee from the bartlett tree experts office next door to his farm set up sprinklers to protect their two properties, but it ultimately ended up not being enough to stop the fire.
after spending a few hours at an rv park in trout creek, the callows were forced to move again, to penticton around 3:30 a.m. saturday. callow’s wife is a nurse at penticton regional hospital and a friend who lives locally was able to put them up.
thankfully, callow said the homestead they had been building on their other property behind the mushroom farm remains intact, meaning they will have somewhere to return home to when the evacuation order is lifted. however, he doesn’t know if he will be able to rebuild the farm business because of the enormous amount it would cost.
he said he hopes ottawa will provide financial assistance to affected farmers but in the meantime he will need to find another job.
“we’re gonna find a way to keep fighting. we’ve always done it, you know. i don’t know how to quit. this is by far the biggest challenge that i’m ever gonna face in my life,” said callow. “but because the house didn’t burn down, i feel like my family still has a chance, and i’m grateful for that.”
margaret buddingh and her husband, paul, inside the penticton trade and convention centre on monday. they do not know if their home was destroyed.
oksana shtohryn
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while callow at least has the closure that his farm is gone but his house still stands, margaret buddingh doesn’t know yet what happened to her home.
she said she first noticed the fire just after supper on friday, as she drew the blinds against the heat the way she always does. she said that when she did so, she saw a black column standing straight up over the new subdivision behind her house at the north end of summerland.
buddingh then saw the red and the flames.
“it takes awhile for your emotions and your brain to believe what you’re seeing, because it doesn’t seem possible,” she said.
buddingh and her husband, paul, sat on the front steps and watched it come. she said the wind picked up and the fire moved fast and they sat there longer than made sense, until one of them finally said out loud what they both already knew.
police knocked twice to be sure they were going.
they left in two vehicles, margaret meaning to follow paul’s tail lights down the highway to penticton. but paul, rattled, had forgotten to switch on the vehicle’s lights, and she spent the drive baffled, only catching sight of him when his brake lights flared.
they reached the reception centre at the penticton trade and convention centre close to midnight and spent about two hours registering in the crush of thousands arriving at once. that first night, they slept in the car.
the days since have mostly been lineups — 15 hours of them one day, paul starting at 6 a.m., some of them turning out to be the wrong line, everyone shuffling to the next. what she keeps coming back to, though, is the people working it: volunteers who’d driven in from keremeos, princeton and tulameen, moving through the crowd with a cheer she couldn’t account for; dozens of doctors and nurses rotating through, stopping to ask each person if they were all right. by sunday, there were free showers and towels at the local pool.
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everything, she kept saying, was free.
she and her husband have split how they’re getting through it.
he moved inside the building for the better ventilation. she stays out with the vehicle and their things, especially at night.
she still doesn’t know if their house is standing. the reports contradict each other and she’s stopped chasing them. a friend who works at the bank told her that building, at least, is still up — which mattered, because that’s where the safety deposit box is, and her paper trail with it.
“god is taking care of me this far,” she said. “it’s not going to help if i walk around sad.”
people affected by the summerland fires wait at the penticton trade and convention centre
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something has shifted in how people treat each other, she said. the neighbours she used to pass on the street with a nod now stop, every time, and hold your eyes while they talk.
she talked about the fire without much trouble, and about the lineups without much trouble. it was when she got to the people who’d stopped to ask if she was ok that her eyes reddened, and she waited a moment before she could go on.
“you can’t pretend to care,” she said. “they look in the eyes and make sure — are you ok?”
asked what she’d tell someone who might one day face the same thing, she didn’t reach far.
“stay calm and stay optimistic,” buddingh said. “be human, be kind.”
other summerland residents were more lucky and know their property was bypassed by the fire.
mike and janice pim are summerland residents who were forced to flee to penticton with their cat due to the bald range wildfire.
mike and janice pim
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mike and janice pim left their home at 10:50 p.m. on friday with their cat and headed to penticton after they saw the fire crest the ridge near their home.
“cartwright mountain is directly in our view, like we look onto that, and we could see the fire on the top of the hill. we could hear it. we could hear branches breaking, and we could hear it sparking, and all the noise of the fire. so we started throwing stuff in the trailer, and then my husband said, as soon as it crests, we’re out,” said janice.
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“by 10:30, quarter to 11, it had crested and started raging down the hill, and then you could really hear it, and there were embers flying everywhere, and so we just got in the trailer. he took the truck and trailer, and i took a different vehicle, and we went to the (evacuation centre) in penticton.”
after spending a night in their trailer in the parking lot of the evacuation centre, they found out that their home had been missed by the fire.
they said that power for their property came on two days ago and they can see from their neighbour’s camera across the street that their property is intact.
sharon poulette and her dog rusty make their way inside the penticton trade and convention centre on august 10, 2026.
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both mike and janice said they greatly appreciate the kindness shown by volunteers at the emergency centre in penticton, who have had to deal with many thousands of evacuees showing up almost at once.
“the people have been so kind, so caring. it’s just unbelievable. and everywhere surrounding as well, oliver, okanagan falls, kaleden. they’ve all opened their hearts and their homes,” said janice.
brad wendt said he helped his father defend his parent’s home on north beach road north of summerland over the weekend and that they were lucky to have okanagan lake right near the property to draw water from.
he said the fire didn’t end up coming near the home, staying mostly north of the highway, but it did destroy a property a couple kilometres south.
“it was going through the night. you could see it encroaching,” said wendt.
“the next morning, it was still burning up above. actually, kind of crazy. we’re sitting and looking, and some burning tumbleweed came down from above. but thankfully, it stopped at the highway because we got up and ran for the pump because we thought if that was coming down, there’s no question it was igniting the bank.”
volunteers help people affected by the summerland fires at the penticton trade and convention centre.
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forests minister ravi parmar told reporters in victoria on monday that the province has created contingency plans for evacuating penticton if it needs to and that even if the province had substantially increased the resources fighting the bald range fire on friday, it would not have made much of a difference.
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he said that the fire grew well beyond provincial monitoring within a matter of hours.
“as good as our modelling is, and i would put our modelling up against any other firefighting agency in the world, we saw the progression of the bald range fire double what our modelling was showing very quickly,” said parmar.
“we could have put 1,000 more helicopters, 1,000 more people on the ground, and it wouldn’t have made a difference. in fact, it would have been a dangerous situation. at about 5:30, 6 o’clock, we had 19 helicopters on that fire, and there was nothing we could do to stop the intensity of a rank five and six fire.”
alec lazenby reported from victoria; oksana shtohryn from penticton
evacuated goats outside penticton trade and convention centre, with human evacuees.
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