British Columbia wildfires: Evacuees describe devastation in small community

Residents of a small British Columbia community hit hard by a wildfire are now getting a first-hand look at the devastation the blaze has caused.

“It’s horrible. It’s indescribable,” said Venables Valley evacuee Jim McComb.

He is one of those forced from his home by the Shetland Creek Wildfire near Spence’s Bridge, which burned down about six homes and 20 other buildings in the off-grid community of Venables Valley.

“This was a beautiful home that we built many years ago,” evacuee McComb said in a video shared with CTV News as he surveyed the damage on his 160-acre organic farm.

“I had about six cabins that were burned to the ground, as well as campers, my workshop, all my machinery and a tractor,” he said.

McComb also lost crops on his farm. His main home survived the fire, though he no longer has water or hydro.

Video footage from the Venables Valley, home to about 100 people, shows burnt buildings, vehicles and trees.

“It’s heartbreaking,” said Mark Greenberg, another evacuee from the community.

He said his home and shop had survived the bushfire, but “pretty much everything else was destroyed.”

Greenberg said he helped a neighbor and was one of the last to leave the night the wildfire ravaged his community.

“There was no one who would survive the wall of flames that came towards us,” he said.

“A big fire demon came over the mountain and we had to run for our lives,” McComb recalls.

But both men are full of praise for firefighters.

“Those guys and girls were out there fighting what they called one of the craziest fires they’d ever seen,” Greenberg said.

“The firefighters did an unbelievably fantastic job. I can’t believe they were able to save the homes they saved,” McComb said.

The Shetland Creek Wildfire is now over 24 square kilometres in size. However, cooler temperatures, less wind and even a little rain have helped with the firefighting.

“It allowed us to do a lot of the so-called clean-up work, where we were able to get rid of anything that was on the edge of the fire,” said Alan McCartney, a public information officer with the BC Wildlife Service.

“It has also allowed us to cut new containment lines or, as the Canadians call them, guards. And those are there to stop the fire or to burn the fuel for the fire in the coming days,” McCartney explained.

He is part of a team of 200 people from Australia and New Zealand helping to extinguish the fire.

According to McCartney, there are currently 17 planes dumping water on the fire.

About a dozen people from Venables, including Greenberg, recently completed training in bushfire fighting.

“There are occasional spot fires in the valley and we now have 12 people trained to deal with them,” he said.

McComb said he wished more had been done to prevent the fire from starting in the first place.

“I have been lobbying the government for 30 years to address the high risk of wildfires in our area,” he said.

However, the community remains united in rebuilding what the fire took from them, and an emergency fund has been set up to help them do so.

“Families in our communities need homes. We’re going to make that happen,” Greenberg said.