‘It’s its own monster’: Harrowing escape detailed by B.C. senior whose home destroyed by wildfire

A 77-year-old man who fled a fast-moving wildfire returned to find his decades-long home reduced to charred rubble.

Evacuation alerts have been lifted in the Thompson-Nicola Regional District and Lytton area after the Saw Creek wildfire was brought under control.

But the news comes too late for a senior whose house burned to the ground last week.

Hugh Poole, 76, is now living out of a hotel room in Maple Ridge after his home of more than three decades in the TNRD was destroyed in the wildfire.

“You stand beside your building, and you look down, and your roof is in the basement, on the basement floor, and you wonder how in God’s name all that got vaporized to collapse in,” Poole said after he saw the charred remains of his home Sunday.

Last Friday, Poole said he had just awoken from an afternoon nap when he looked outside and saw a huge “fireball” on the mountain.

“Smoke, particles and somewhere in there flames … it’s its own monster,” he said.

He phoned a neighbour to find out what was going on.

“She said, ‘Are you on the hill? You better get … out of there. It’s moving!” he recalled.

Poole said that in his panicked state, he grabbed only a few things before a harrowing drive to safety.

“When I get down to the highway, the fire is there on either side, and so you go through a fire tunnel,” he said.

Two days later, he learned he’d lost everything.

“So we drove in, and it was gone. It’s so awful when that’s the place you don’t know anymore, the charred one,” Poole said.

Tricia Thorpe, a director with the Thompson Nicola Regional District, lost her home to a wildfire almost five years ago,

“Anytime anyone loses their home, it’s devastating. Your life is never quite the same again,” she said.

The Saw Creek fire, more than 700 hectares in size, is now deemed under control, but still presents challenges.

Paula Walbauer/Information Officer Sawcreek Wildfire

“That steep, steep terrain, the slope that we see here in the canyon, makes those operations challenging. As well as our increase in temperatures today… so we’re going to trend toward that 35 degrees,” explained Paula Walbauer, an information officer on the Saw Creek wildfire.

“We do currently have 197 BC personnel with Lytton Fire Rescue on the fire line as well as 56 fire protection,” she said.

Wildfires are nothing new for this part of the province.

“Since 2021, Area I of the Thompson Nicola Regional District has had 13 major fires, counting this one,” Thorpe said.

Nearly five years ago, nearby Lytton was almost destroyed by fire. Now they are getting help from a number of communities with the Saw Creek fire.

“It’s been amazing the support and the resources that have been put on this,” said Lytton Mayor Denise O’Connor.

As for Poole, Thorpe said an online fundraiser is being set up to help.

“I’m hoping the community will help pull together to ease the burden he’s going to face going forward,” she said.

After Monday, he will no longer receive emergency housing through the province and will have nowhere to go.

Thorpe also said that it continues to be difficult for some rural residents to get fire insurance.

“I’ve had a number of residents decline because they’re so remote,” she said.