A Scotch Creek, B.C., resident says he travelled through the destructive, wind-fuelled Bush Creek East wildfire as he escaped to safety, ending up at the Kamloops Emergency Support Services centre.
LJ Folden told Castanet Kamloops that he barely made it out of the Shuswap Lake community of Scotch Creek after finding out about the evacuation order issued for his property.
Folden said when an evacuation alert was issued, he had noticed the fire getting worse and worse. However, he said no one came to his door to warn him when the alert changed to an order.
He said he called the non-emergency RCMP line, where they told him that he needed to evacuate. He said he had to leave in a hurry.
“I just had to leave it all. Yeah, I didn't have a lot of stuff, but I really liked the stuff I had,” he said.
Folden said he grabbed a laundry basket of clothes before driving away in his van.
“After I crossed the bridge in Scotch Creek, I was driving through walls of flame 10 feet high, with the hot embers pelting the side of my car from the wind blowing through,” he said.
“I was scared for my life. I didn't know what was on the other side, I just drove through it. And I made it to Kamloops to the emergency centre here.”
Folden said after registering with the evacuation services, he got a room in a Kamloops hotel.
He said a couple of days after the evacuation happened, he looked up the Bush Creek East fire online and found a video showing his home had burnt down.
“A pile of rubble of what I used to live in, I recognized it immediately, and I've lost everything,” he said.
“I just feel like I've been cast loose. I’m a leaf in the wind tumbling down the sidewalk. No idea which way I'm going to go, where I'm going to land.”
The Bush Creek East wildfire took a significant 20 kilometre run in under 12 hours last week Friday, according to the BC Wildfire Service.
Cliff Chapman, BCWS director, said the wildfire was “extremely aggressive” as it headed towards North Shuswap, Highway 1, Sorrento and Chase.
“That is a significant fire run for this province, and it was extremely challenging conditions to try to get people out. I'm thankful that we were able to do that," Chapman said.
A number of structures have been lost in Celista and Scotch Creek, but an official count of the damage has yet to be released. The Columbia Shuswap Regional District said Tuesday it is working with a heavy urban search and rescue unit to complete a rapid damage assessment in the area.
