The Elephant Hill wildfire started on July 6, 2017, left a trail of destruction as it grew over a three-month period before it was 100 per cent contained on Sept. 27.
As per the Thompson-Nicola Regional District (TNRD), the fire destroyed 45 residences in Boston Flats, 40 in Loon Lake and 33 in Pressy Lake.
Jennifer Brown was one of the luckier members of the community.
Both her and her father, Dave, own cabins in the area and kept a keen eye on the Elephant Hill fires after they smelled smoke while visiting one of the cabins with Jennifer’s seven-month-old baby in early July and decided to leave.
“The morning B.C. declared the state of emergency I was there with my dad and seven-month-year-old. He was a formula-fed baby and I only had enough for our week stay. It was a reality check,” she recalled. “There was one of three highways out of the area open and Wayne Lorenz came to tell me even that one was RCMP controlled because there was a fire there on either side of the road. It was very scary. I’ve been to Afghanistan as a soldier [and] I haven’t been that scared since I drove the roads there.”
RELATED: Pressy cabin owner feels happy and guilty it survived
Safely evacuated, Brown and many other Pressy Lake residents used Facebook to share whatever information they could in a group Brown created along with Katie Bulhoes.
Brown managed to track down a logger who told her homes had burnt down.
“When I finally tracked down someone who had indeed been in the area I felt like I could throw up,” she said. “I knew from his description and from the direction the fire was coming and the topography that what he said was true.”
She shared this information with other residences and said there was a lot of disbelief. It was a week later that members of the Pressy Lake community were told officially if their cabins or full-time residences were lost to the fire by the TNRD.
As soon as the first person posted on the Facebook group that they had lost their cabin, Brown rushed to her father’s place.
“Then a few minutes later, another person posted the same. It just kept happening,” she said. “It was so painful to read. I grabbed the phone and my knees went weak when I saw Kamloops on the display [when the TNRD called her father]. When we realized it was just burnt fencing and some trees we cried happy, sad exhausted tears. I think we all aged years in those few weeks.”
RELATED: Rising from the ashes: Pressy Lake
The fire stopped within four feet of the cabin. Brown said black toothpick trees can be seen kilometre after kilometre and they can now see hills they weren’t able to see in the distance because the forest was enough to block them.
“It’s still eerie, it’s hard to see. There’s so much sadness now in a place that was a holiday and a ‘get-away’ when life got rough,” she said. “It’s really nice to see some resilient green popping up through the ash. It will never be the same, but regrowth will come and it will still be beautiful. Just different.”
Brown and other members of the Pressy Lake community tried to get answers from the TNRD on how this could have happened. They still haven’t received any that were satisfactory.
“Who dropped the ball and never provided Pressy Lake with fire protection? Nothing was done. I gathered photos of all the properties from residences. No gate locks were cut, propane tanks were still on porches. No retardants were spread,” she said. There were finger pointing and passing of the buck. At the end of the day, this could have happened differently.”
The rebuilding of the community has already started though, with at least six residences being rebuilt. Brown said that some people are having issues with getting permits but it was still a great feeling.
As for Brown and her father, they are still using the cabins as much as before the fire.
“Our cabin is everything to us. It’s seen a lot of life and love over the years. It’s home and always will be.”
Katie Bulhoes would also like to invite residents of Pressy Lake to a potluck in September where they will be accepting donations of seedling(s) in an effort to replant the area. Please contact Bulhoes through the Pressy Lake Strong Facebook page, as this is a private event.
