August 17, 2023 Fire and Smoke

I saw the smoke billowing above my beloved city. I deep ache pulsed through my body, and a tingling fear encircled my spine. The thing we all fear the most has come to our valley. 

Fire!

Only a week after wildfires consumed parts of Hawaii and in the middle of the worst fire season on record a fire rages out of control. Only ten kilometres from my home. And I’m one of the lucky ones. 

The wind began around four thirty in the afternoon. The wind they predicted, the wind we all feared. I was on the lake when it began to blow. We watched in horror as the smoke billowed northward. Flames licked toward the heavens and the ache dug deep into my soul. I needed help getting my boat on the trailer the wind was gusting so hard. At least I was off the lake and headed home.

The wind!

It pushed the flames higher and farther. Faster the raging blaze went, consuming everything in its path. I was relieved it was pushing the fire in the other direction, away from my city and my home. Right into other homes along Okanagan Lake. 

The wind!

My home shook with the vibration of the wind and I found myself on edge. I needed to do something. My friend messaged me he thought that people were jumping into Okanagan Lake to escape the fires. Should we go and help? But the wind… and the waves. It was like going from the fire into the frying pan. There were fire and RCMP boats on the scene. There couldn’t be that many people in the water… could there be?

Still, I wanted to help. My community was under attack. So I grabbed my keys including the ones for the dock and went to see if I could volunteer at the evacuation centre. I’d helped out fifteen years before when we’d been struck by another fire. 

“We only require people with the proper training,” was the answer.

Just like that, I was turned away. I wonder if it had made a difference if I’d told them I had a boat and was a captain. At the time I didn’t think about it. They seemed to have things under control. Unlike fifteen years ago, there weren’t that many people looking for help.

I missed a call from my friends that were being evacuated and I thought maybe they were on the way to my house so I rushed home to see if they were there. But they’d gone the other way up to Big White. I sat on my computer and stared at pictures of the horror unfolding.

The fire jumped the lake. A distance unfathomable, burning embers flew through the raging wind and set fire to another area of our city. Now fire crews were in a desperate battle to save homes not only in West Kelowna but in more communities in Kelowna. Scattered reports were coming in about people in the lake. Was this Maui 2.0? Should I have braved the stormy waters and set out for my boat? 

A deep pit knawed at my stomach and I drifted off to sleep. It was almost midnight, time for bed. I awoke five hours later to my asthma pushing on my lungs. When I got up I heard my phone going off. It was a text from my friend Ron asking if I wanted to go rescue people from the water. The message was sent at 12:15 am – I’d just gone to bed.

My stomach plunged deeper into itself.  

Helplessly I went back to bed. And tried to sleep some more. Until I was woken up by messages making sure I was ok. A sentiment I appreciated, just not at 6:00 am. I tried to sleep again, but images of people in the lake haunted my brain. Was there anything to be done now? I texted my friend to see if they still needed boats. Not anymore as far as he knew.

I checked the news and saw that homes have been lost. I hope no one died in the fury of the waves and the fires. 

And the wind continues to blow.