On Evacuation Alert

The wildfire situation in BC keeps getting worse

This morning finds me tired and anxious. The fire above me started high on the mountain during a lightning storm back on June 24. I was home working in my office. From my office window, the sun was shining. There was a risk of thunderstorms in the forecast. I heard two loud cracks of thunder behind me. Twenty minutes later I was smelling smoke. It’s hard not to panic.

A flurry of texts and phone calls followed as neighbors alerted neighbors and calls to the fire center began. The skies darkened as the storm made it over the mountains. It carried on for hours. Lots of lightning strikes, rain on and off, and sudden gusts of winds that would surely fan the fire wherever it was. Two strikes landed, one in a field directly behind me, and the other across the river lower than me, both shaking my house hard. It was pretty intense.

When the storm passed it was quickly determined that the fire was near the top of the mountain, but associated directly with the creek where my water comes from (which is also the way the wind blows down everything summer evening). Far enough away to just be monitored, but a looming risk if it managed to rain hot ash downward and start new fires.

For a couple of weeks, the fire was a major concern, but not threatening. After a week or so the fire seemed to be essentially out, or at least burning at a very low level. Life moved on. But the summer temperatures arrived last week and it changed everything.

Suddenly on the afternoon of July 22 the fire blew up fast and large. I took my dogs outside around 9 pm and was shocked to see a giant smoke cloud towering behind me. I walked to the edge of my property to look up the creekshed and could not believe the size of the fire cloud. . . . This time the fire was a threat.

Riley Creek Fire at 9pm on 22-Jun-2026 (Source: Sue Senger)

Our neighborhood fire phone tree activated and we all began preparing to-go bags and make plans to leave. By midnight on July 23 we were officially on evacuation alert. And that’s where we have stayed. On high alert, waiting to see if we have leave our homes.

It’s hard for me to fathom that it has only been three days because everything starts to blur together. Going through an evacuation alert alone on a farm is hell. You still have to do all the normal work as well as organize to leave if the need arises.

I was truly blessed yesterday when a neighbor came, helped assess my house for fire risks and then returned with 4 more people to help. The 6 of us worked all day yesterday to remove ladder fuels from near my home and to install two impact sprinklers on the roof. My house now has a fighting chance to survive (as long as our water holds).

I have been madly cleaning up flammable things, trimming down grass, moving sprinklers, and working to have an evacuation plan . Every night the fire flares making it hard to rest at night. I try to catch sleep during the day. The waiting and the uncertainty are hard to manage.

The cooler temperatures of the yesterday and today have slowed our fire down, even as others in BC face the devastating reality of evacuation orders. Some have tragically already lost homes. I am hoping to not get added to that growing list of evacuees. So much depends on the winds and what happens when the temperatures start to rise again in the coming summer weeks of August.

So I am writing today to let you know it may be a week or two before I can return to writing about food and gardening and wellness. I appreciate your patience and support while I focus on trying to save my home and farm.

Stay safe out there

S