Last year in August, I left Haida Gwaii to embark on the 15-hour drive to the Okanagan.
In Smithers, my engine light flickered on, and my anxiety rose, knowing I still had so far to go. I stopped at Canadian Tire, and they told me my bushings had broken and they would have to fix them before I headed any farther.
As I walked into town and waited for my car, Jesse, my boyfriend, called me.
“I don’t know if you will be coming here after all…”
“Because of my car? No — I’m sure the mechanic will fix it by tomorrow.”
“No… look…” Jesse turned on Facetime. Behind him was a massive cloud towering over the tree line. My mouth dropped.
“What is that?”
“It’s from a fire…” Jesse said. He turned his camera so I could see the piles of smoke in the sky. The smoke was purple, grey, white, and red — the colours of the Okanagan.
“That looks close to you… maybe you should get out of there!” I said, growing nervous.
“I might have to. I’ll be in touch, okay? I gotta go.”
My portal to seeing him and the fire closed. I was no longer a part of it. I was miles away in the north with a broken car, my destination growing in flames.
I rushed to a café and typed “Kelowna Fire News.” I saw images of smoke billowing hundreds of feet over Westside Road, a place I knew so well. I had lived on Westside Road for a year and a half, so my imagination could take me much farther than a few images online.
I knew the bends in the road and the wild rams that walked across the highway. I learned about the morel mushrooms in the hills above that had grown off ashes from previous fires years before. I had met locals in the area and spent time in their gardens and around their homes, which they had built decades ago
All land carries memories. All land holds someone’s heart. All land has animals and flora and fauna that depend on it. All nature depends on the structure of the land. But wildfires are part of nature, too. What a strange thought.
Jesse called again.
“They have lost control of the fire… we’re in an emergency. They are saying this is the worst fire in 100 years. People are jumping into the lake to get away. They are sending boats to retrieve them in the water!”
“What? You need to leave!”
“I will. I am just putting our things in the truck, and I’ll meet you tomorrow.”
“Okay.”
I continued to check the news, but it was only getting worse. The fire was out of control, and I feared what I would wake to. The next morning, I crawled out of my sleeping bag and opened my phone. Within a night, 4,800 people evacuated. Over 200 homes had burned down, and the fire destroyed the Okanagan Resort — just a five-minute drive from our place.
Everything was melting, and I thought about climate change and how strange summers are now. I thought about all the animals stranded, nature in agony, and terrified people. I also thought about how eerie it is that the more the glaciers melt away, the more people’s homes melt in flames.
British Columbia has the majority of forest fires in Canada each year. In 2023, over 2.84 million hectares burned in B.C., ten times the area expected in a decade.
Is this what is now “common” today? As I prepared for my long drive to meet Jesse, I thought about how lucky we are on Haida Gwaii to be away from mainland forest fires.
Though we face our own challenges with the colder and wetter summer months, we are fortunate, so far, to be spared the devastation of wildfires.