PENTICTON, B.C. – Jim Harnden and Tracey Colman have spent many years travelling the country in their camper van, which has now become a temporary home in a Walmart parking lot, after a wildfire tore through their community. Still the couple is making the best of it. “We’re safe. We’re as safe as we can make it,” Harnden told CTV News on Monday. “Life gives you lemons, you make lemonade,” Colman added. The couple is among nearly 20,000 people forced from their homes as the Bald Range wildfire raced through the hills west of Summerland, B.C. Harnden and Colman fled Friday night as flames threatened the community overlooking Okanagan Lake. Video captured by residents showed homes burning as families made their escape. “It was like a freight train coming at you,” said Blair Dufty, who watched the fire overtake the area where he had lived for two decades. “The heat, everything. It’s just unexplainable. You can’t really explain how fast the stuff happened. One minute there was some smoke, the next minute there’s flames everywhere. (It) just rolled in.” Dufty said there was no time to save much. “We grabbed a few things, socks, a couple of passports, IDs. There wasn’t enough time to really salvage much.” Within minutes he said, the home he spent decades in was gone. “Twenty years of building everything we’ve built, to watch it go up in flames in five minutes. Just gone.” While the house and belongings can be replaced, Dufty said the hardest losses are the ones that carried memories. “My wife’s a painter. We had paintings hanging on all the walls. The kind of stuff that means more memory-wise than value-wise.” Dufty said the grief comes in waves. “Lots of highs and lows. (There are) moments where I’m okay, and the next moment you’re not okay.” The wildfire has now grown to about 156 square kilometres — larger than the City of Vancouver — and remains out of control. The evacuations have also turned deadly. As thousands fled Summerland and parts of Peachland to escape the fire on Friday, an elderly woman died. The BC Wildfire Service said the fire grew slightly overnight on Sunday into Monday, limited to about one to 1.5 kilometres on the northwestern and southern flanks. Winds that were forecast to gust up to 50 km/h did not materialize. Officials warned that improved visibility and sunshine could increase fire activity Monday. But for Harnden, even these difficult days are a gift. He has terminal metastatic spinal cancer and has been receiving hospice care. “I don’t know how much time I’ve got,” he said. “I just want to make the best out of it.” For now, he and Colman plan to remain in their van as long as his health allows. “In hospice… you live together and tell each other’s stories,” Harnden said. “This is just one of them.”
