Breaking:: Communities Mourn Devastation and Focus on Rebuilding as Wildfires Persist

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Embers rained down on Kukpi7 (Chief) James Tomma and his brothers as they took shelter in a river to escape the raging Bush Creek East bushfire last Friday.

“We had to run to the river… and the fire was there. It already came and almost immediately it jumped the river and started burning on the other side. And we got stuck on the river bank,” said Tomma, chief of the Skwlāx te Secwepemcúl̓ecw.

“It sounded like a war zone, it sounded like a war zone… It wasn’t a couple of embers, it was a shower of embers.”

The North Shuswap community of about 350 residents had been placed on evacuation alert just hours earlier as the fire converged with the Lower East Adams fire.

As the Tomma brothers hid under the Squilax Bridge, they could hear the destruction begin.

“The community blew up and boom, boom, boom, boom, boom. And then I knew that these are my people, that they are losing all of this,” said Tomma, who was rescued by two members of the neighboring Adams Lake Indian Band by boat.

More than 31 homes in the community were destroyed by the fire, including Tomma’s and his brother, Rocky, who hid with him under the bridge.

But the brothers take solace in the fact that they all made it out alive before the fire swept through the city.

“I was praying, ‘Please everyone else get out… everyone else be safe,’” Rocky said. “Everyone was accounted for except one. And then they got reports that she was okay. Wow, you know, they all felt that joy.”

Now, barely a week since that harrowing night, the chief says he is confident that with time and support from other levels of government, the community will be able to rebuild.

Much of the main infrastructure, including the band office, fire hall, and some community housing, are still there, along with the wellness center and other terraced houses.

“I think my band members should call home again before the snow flies,” Tomma said in Kamloops on Friday, vowing not to start rebuilding her own house until other members were sheltered again.

But how and when the First Nation will rebuild remains uncertain, and the same questions linger for several other wildfire-ravaged communities across British Columbia as emergency officials continue to investigate and assess the damage.

The fires have decimated traffic signals, downed power lines and swept away key landmarks, which can make it difficult for firefighters to identify and report each individual property that has been affected in the central Okanagan and Shuswap region of northeastern Kamloops.

For many it is an excruciating wait to learn if their home was among the 131 destroyed in north Shuswap, or among at least 181 razed to the ground by the Grouse complex fires in the Kelowna area.

The full extent of the damage is not always visible under the rubble, and it takes time for officials to adequately inform residents that their homes are no longer safe or unsafe.

Tommas said misinformation about his home’s security, which was corrected soon after, was like losing his home twice, while telling other members their homes were gone was “heartbreaking.”

And as the flames have receded in some areas, officials say it takes time to ensure an area is safe for people to return to, before evacuation orders can be lifted.

Although several inland evacuation orders have been lifted, including in Kelowna, West Kelowna and Sorrento, that doesn’t mean the areas are habitable.

BC Hydro and FortisBC must conduct separate assessments to ensure that power, water and gas lines are safe or rendered inoperable if damaged.

And the Ministry of Transport and Infrastructure is evaluating roads and bridges and noted on Friday that one in northern Shuswap is not passable at the moment.

“The lines on the ground, there are often power outages that cause rotting food and septic systems to get out of control… So it takes a huge effort to harden an area and make it somewhat safe for you can get home,” Mike McCulley, fire information officer for the British Columbia Forest Fire Service, said Friday.

uncertainty and anxiety

Many residents, however, are eager to see for themselves, even if they know the fate of their homes.

Shuswap residents peppered emergency officials with the Thompson-Nicola Regional District with questions at a town hall on Friday, pleading to know the fate of their homes, when they might return and what supports will be available if they do.

The gathering came after several protesters tried Thursday to prevent an RCMP roadblock on the Trans-Canada Highway near Sorrento.

McCulley identified himself and asked those who wish to return for patience.

“We are desperate for people to come home, just like everyone else,” he said.

Tommas says rebuilding the homes and buildings the First Nation lost could cost up to $50 million, but it’s too early to tell the full extent of the damage to water, electricity and sewage systems.

“We are going to try and hope that what we do is enough for our band members to at least survive for the foreseeable future,” he said.

“But the cost is going to be extreme. There’s no denying it.”

Tommas is grateful that no one was killed, but says that the rebuilding will be more than just the physical construction of the community.

“Looking down the coast and seeing my people’s houses burning and everything… there’s a difference between a house and a home,” he said.

“People are now coming to terms with the devastating loss we suffered.”

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