‘Devastation’: Chief says about 230 homes destroyed by B.C. wildfire

The wildfire has been one of the most devastating events in the band’s history, he said.

Wilson described the event as “surreal,” saying the scope of destruction was just sinking in.

The fire started late Friday and was fanned by winds gusting up to 115 kilometres per hour.

“The point that I really want to make to everyone is that the fire spread so fast that some of our members only had five minutes to evacuate,” Wilson said.

Reserve resident Louis Fred and his wife Shorty said they barely made it out on Saturday, with the wind-driven flames on their heels.

“I’ve been living here all my life, and I’ve really never seen anything like this one here, this weekend here,” Louis Fred said. “Even 2021 was bad. It was huge. But the wind wasn’t nothing like (that) compared to this one.”

The Freds are among about 8,000 people who have been forced from their homes across B.C., according to Emergency Management Minister Kelly Greene.

She told a separate briefing on Tuesday that there are 37 evacuation orders across the province, although she added that orders and alerts were changing hourly.

The orders triggered by the Bradley Creek fire expanded on Tuesday, as the Regional District of North Okanagan added more than 40 properties as the fire blocked some road escape routes.

The EmergencyBC system said on social media that residents affected by the expanded order will be escorted out in a convoy.

The BC Wildfire Service said there were about 120 active wildfires across the province, with roughly 50 of them burning out-of-control.

In addition to Bradley Creek at the north end of Okanagan Lake, major fires are burning in the Fraser Canyon, Thompson-Nicola and East Kootenay regions near communities, including Boston Bar, Clinton and Kimberley.

The wildfire service said Tuesday that fire activity is expected to increase this week “as hot and dry conditions return for the majority” of B.C., although winds are forecasted to remain light.

When asked why the government hasn’t yet declared a state of emergency, Greene said it was unnecessary, as every jurisdiction that was fighting a wildfire already had a local state of emergency, enabling firefighters to take the action needed to protect communities and lives.

The designation would allow the government to restrict travel in the province or ration supplies, such as fuel or accommodations, but Greene said those options weren’t immediately needed.

When the Bradley Creek fire bore down on the Freds home on the Okanagan Indian Band reserve on Saturday, the couple and friends and family members initially tried to fight the flames.

Louis Fred tried to carve a break with his tractor by knocking the grass down before the fire spread too far, but he had to give up and get out, and the “doggone flames are right on my butt.”

“They’re licking his heels basically,” Shorty Fred said.

“And then he got lost in that dust, the smoke, the fire, and I was worried for him and our son.”

The winds came with such extreme ferocity that embers were singeing hair on their son, who Louis Fred said “had to drag our cousin George outta there: ‘go, gotta go, gotta go!'”

Shorty Fred said the winds were intense, whipping up dust and smoke, with “grasshoppers coming at me and all kinds of things coming at you with the wind.”

Louis Fred said they were driving slowly down the road as they fled, running over downed power lines and going around poles lying across the road, while others were burned and dangling from the lines.

Their home off Westside and Skookum Mine Road in Vernon is now lost, and they were fortunate to have a friend offer up a place to stay while they were out of province.

They said they lost years of pictures and beadwork and other heirlooms going back generations, and insurance on band lands wasn’t an option.

“We’re in a grey area. We’re on reserve and people won’t touch us with a 10-foot pole with insurance,” Shorty Fred said.

Greene said work to assess the scale of the “tragic losses” would take place over the weeks to come.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 4, 2026.

Darryl Greer, The Canadian Press

by The Canadian Press

‘Devastation’: Chief says about 230 homes destroyed by B.C. wildfire

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