BOSTON BAR, B.C. – Every few minutes, a helicopter swoops overhead, dipping into the Fraser River before climbing back toward the smoke-covered mountainside. Maki Hartikainen is watching it all unfold sitting in the back of his pickup.
“I’ve never been this stressed in my life,” he said.
Hartikainen’s home is in the evacuation zone near the town of Boston Bar in B.C.’s Fraser Canyon, around 200-kilometre northeast of metro Vancouver. When the order to evacuate came down Saturday night, he only had time to round up three of his four cats, and not much else.
“My grandmas sentimental blankets, got my guns and ammo out, documents and some clothing and that’s about it,” he told CTV News.
He figures flames may be within around 200 metres of his home based on information he’s finding online.
“I’ve been doomscrolling a lot,” Hartikainen said. “Looking for every available update, and I haven’t been able to work unfortunately, I’ve just been too stressed out.”
Hartikainen is among hundreds of residents forced from their homes by the Brunswick Complex wildfire, made up of the Brunswick Creek and Ainslie Creek wildfires burning on opposite sides of the Fraser River north of Boston Bar. Strong winds and hot dry conditions have led to rapid fire growth and forced the closure of Highway 1.
Shayne Findlay owns the nearby Blue Lake Resort and was surveying what remains of his property Thursday.
“This here is our manager’s house. It was about four decades old,” he said, pointing toward the rubble. Findlay estimates five buildings and 10 trailers in total at the resort have been lost.
“People are excited about their vacations every year and it’s breaking my heart coming to the realization this isn’t something we can come back from in a couple weeks,” Findlay said.
Hundreds of people in the community are on evacuation alert, packed and ready to go and anxiously spending their days looking up at the burning slope, trying to pass the time.
“Actually, I was out pulling weeds earlier trying to keep busy,” laughed resident Mark Redekop.
But Redekop’s tone changed quickly describing what it feels like to be living minute-by-minute in a situation most only ever experience watching or reading the news.
“You don’t really understand it, I don’t think, until you’re close to it and you can literally lose everything you have. It gets a little more real,” he said.
Redekop says he and his wife, who is currently out of town, are packed and ready to go, but if the evacuation order is expanded further into Boston Bar, he won’t be hitting the highway south, at least at first.
“I’m sticking around as long as I can trying to fight this fire. I’m not going anywhere,” he said.
