A B.C. rancher who fled his home ahead of raging wildfires in the area says he’s facing no choice but to wait out the flames, with nowhere to go and little contact with the outside world.

“We’re surrounded. We just don’t know where to go,” Andy Witteman told CTV News Channel by phone on Sunday, from the ranch near his farm. Witteman says he willingly left his home on Saturday after receiving the evacuation order for that area.

Similar orders have been issued for large stretches of the province’s central interior, where at least 230 fires are raging, most of them out of control. Officials have declared a province-wide state of emergency, and firefighters are being called in from outside B.C. to help with the crisis. An estimated 3,000 homes have been evacuated across the Cariboo, Princeton and Ashcroft regions, with evacuees taking refuge at centres in Kamloops, Williams Lake and Prince George.

Witteman says he returned to his farm Saturday night to feed the animals and check on the property, which has not yet been touched by flames. However, he says visibility is difficult in the area.

“There’s no fire there right now, it’s just you can’t see down or up,” he said.

He added that he’s opened the gates at his farm so the animals there have a chance to reach a body of water if the flames come through.

Witteman says he’s waiting to be ordered off the ranch where he’s taken refuge, but communication is a challenge because the power is out. However, his eyes tell him the fire is still near. “You can see the plumes out on the horizon,” he said.

Witteman says he was completely “smoked out” of his home on Saturday. One day earlier, he recalls seeing large plumes of smoke on the horizon to the north and south of his home, near Williams Lake and 100 Mile House, respectively.

“We’re waiting it out to see where the fires go,” he said.