08/09/2026
After dinner on Friday I saw a post on Facebook about there being a fire in Summerland. At the time it was just a small bit of smoke. And l looked at my husband and we said "oh crap".
Within the span of 20 minutes that fire grew to 50 hectares. And then we looked outside and saw a massive plume of smoke.
Less than an hour later it was 1000 hectares.
And then a couple hours after that it reached 5000 hectares and then the entire town of Summerland was evacuated and Highway 97
shut down.
They're saying they've never seen a fire grow this fast in such a short amount of time.
We could see flames from our house at one point.
My husband works in close contact with BC Wildfire and knows the background info on what's going on. He has reassured us we were safe where we were until morning.
We finally got to sleep around 2:30 am and then were up at 5:30 am again with my husband going back to the fire to see where it was and me taking care of our animals. Then I got a chiling phone call from my husband. “Babe, it’s time to leave now".
The community pulled together and it had me in tears receiving the amount of support we have. I am so grateful.
Please send prayers to Summerland. To everyone that has lots their homes, livelihoods, pets and more. And please pray for rain.