6 wildfires create uncertainty and anxiety near B.C.’s Slocan Lake

The smoke is so thick in New Denver, B.C., that Nicole Blacksioux can no longer see the flames from her deck that were candling up the trees in the wildfire across the lake. 

With two fires burning across Slocan Lake from them and others burning to the south of them, Blacksioux said she’s hopeful her family won’t have to leave their home.  

“We built this place, and just knowing that if we have to leave, we have to leave everything behind,” she said. “It’s very heartbreaking.”

And even without an evacuation, Blacksioux said her five-year-old daughter is already having nightmares because of the fires. 

“We could feel the heat from it. Big ash and embers were falling down on us,” she said.

The Regional District of Central Kootenay (RDCK) has put the Village of New Denver and other nearby properties on evacuation alert, as a series of lightning storms swept through the area over the last few weeks and sparked dozens of fires in the southeast corner of B.C. 

The district has also had to evacuate hundreds of people in the past few days.

The latest community to be affected is Slocan, a community that is around 30 kilometres south of New Denver. The district upgraded the evacuation alert, which was issued for the village and nearby properties Saturday, to an order Sunday morning. 

Highway 6 along Slocan Lake is also closed for a nearly 40-kilometre stretch from south of Slocan to just beyond New Denver to the north, according to DriveBC. 

Slocan Mayor Jessica Lunn said the evacuation has been surreal. The order covers all 208 properties in the village and 309 in the surrounding area.

“Everyone has been really nervous; [there’s] a lot of anxiety or angst,” she said.

But Lunn said she is comforted by the amount of support her community of about 370 residents is receiving. 

“There’s been a lot of neighbours helping neighbours,” Lunn said. “So, folks were quite prepared for the actual evacuation order.” 

Dan Seguin, RDCK’s emergency operations centre director, told CBC’s Daybreak Kamloops that more than half of Slocan residents had already left by Sunday, when the order was in place, thanks to advance warning from the B.C. Wildfire Service (BCWS).

Garrett Connolly, who had to leave Slocan and says it’s the first time he’s had to flee wildfires, described the anxiety of being on evacuation alert for days before the order came down.

“Every time you leave the house, you start planning for the worst,” he said. “You’re like, ‘Oh, I need to go to grab some groceries … should I bring my pedal bike? Should I bring all my, like, personal belongings, load the truck, or do I just bring a couple of things, and I’ll be able to go back?’

“So yeah, it’s definitely a little stressful in that way.”

Silverton evacuated

Jason Lawler, an incident commander who heads an Australian management team brought in to help battle the fires around Slocan Lake, said the fires have been hard to fight for several reasons.   

“One of the challenges we’ve had is the significantly difficult terrain, [and] really dry fuel, but also we’ve had little to no rain over the past couple of weeks,” he said in a video shared by the BCWS. 

Lawler said what occurs in the morning can be very different from the afternoons on some days. Layers of smoke are also hindering the use of aircraft to help fight the fires.

He added that weather conditions “aren’t great at the moment,” and he’s not expecting improvement in the coming days.

Elsewhere in the area, the Village of Silverton — a community of around 200 people five kilometres south of New Denver — and nearby properties have been under an evacuation order for almost a week. 

Silverton Mayor Tanya Gordon told CBC News Monday that the wildfires have not reached Silverton. She said she feels confident that the village will be “alright,” as it has done a lot of fire-smarting treatments around the area.

But she acknowledged the anxiety that residents are feeling and the community support that they have received. 

“A lot of people just want my information and just a shoulder to cry on,” Gordon said in an interview from New Denver. “We come from a great community here with a lot of community support. Everybody is helping everybody out.”