The small community of Faulder, B.C., was hit hard by the fast-moving and aggressive Bald Range wildfire.
The blaze broke out on Friday afternoon near Summerland and grew quickly to 5,000 hectares in only a few hours. It is now mapped at more than 15,500 hectares.
Faulder residents Brock and Rick Leitner shared videos with Global News, taken as they were forced to flee early on Saturday morning.
“Really eerie driving out there when you couldn’t see barely into the bush, it was so dense,” Rick said of what it used to look like.
“And now you can see into the bushy sticks and the gray floor. It’s horrifying.”
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Rick said he is devastated for his friends and neighbours.
“Those people have nowhere to live now,” he said. “Those people have no tools. Those people have nothing.”
Driving down a five-kilometre stretch, Rick said roughly a handful of homes are left standing.
“I drove past all those houses every day,” he said.
Now homes have been flattened, vehicles charred and trees turned to matchsticks.
Brock said they wanted to share these videos to provide their friends and neighbours with answers to their questions.
“If someone was able to tell me if my house was still there, I would want someone to tell me,” he said.
“I would hate waiting.”
Rick said he hopes they don’t offend anyone by sharing the videos, and if they did, they are sorry for that.
250 plus homes in Kelowna in 2002. Mother Nature is just repeating herself
and yet they have the army on “standby”. Why on standby, people are losing their homes, jobs and animals. Get out there and help. How many more homes need to be lost before they are no longer on standby.
@Lance Walker, maybe check your spelling and grammar before hitting send, especially when you’re calling out someone else’s spelling.
Amy Judd should learn to spell. It’s “eerie”, nor “errie”. not impressed.