West Kelowna couple loses home, business in wildfire

A couple in West Kelowna have lost their business and home in the McDougall Creek Wildfire that continues to rage in B.C.’s Okanagan.

Crystal and Jeff Findlay say they’re used to close calls with wildfires, having lived and worked in the Central Interior region for the past six years.

“When we first heard about the fire, we felt comforted knowing, ‘It’s okay, we’ve been through this before,'” Crystal told CityNews.

(Left to right) Crystal and Jeff Findlay, who lost their home and business in the McDougall Creek wildfire on Thursday. (CityNews Image)

The couple, who owns Broken Rail Ranch Trail Rides, says they even ran a tour on Thursday morning before they were ordered to leave early in the afternoon.

When the evacuation order came through, Crystal says they quickly had to mobilize staff and friends to help evacuate their 19 horses, four goats, four cats, two dogs, and a mule from the looming blaze.

“People just showed up,” she said. “One of the most beautiful things about these types of tragedies is seeing how people come together, and watching horse trailer after horse trailer pulling into our property of people that we have never met.”

She says nearly all of her farm animals made it out safely, with the exception of two pigs that couldn’t be coerced from their pens. In all, she says her property was fully evacuated in just a matter of hours.

Fire ‘has a voice’

While Crystal was busy organizing the evacuation of her farmland, her husband stayed behind in an effort to fireproof as much of their property as possible.

He says by around 8 p.m. on Thursday, the land was surrounded by flames.

“It was like an explosion, a fireball. The entire neighbourhood went up at once,” he recalled.

“By the time I left, branches were flying through the air and landing on dry ground and you could just see fires starting to spark all over the place.”

The couple shared footage of the flames on Instagram, which show vibrant orange, smoky skies with flames seen in the distance.

“The fire … has a voice. It’s really scary and it creates its own climate,” he said.

Jeff soon left the area and joined Crystal at her sister’s home outside of the wildfire danger area. The animals, meanwhile, were taken to a friend’s home who had an open field for them.

Couple poured their ‘heart and soul’ into business

On Friday, the couple says they were able to survey the damage to their property.

“The house is gone, the barn is gone … everything there is just dust,” Jeff explained.

“Our entire community, our neighbours, people in other neighbourhoods, this fire is unlike anything I have seen. For us, I’m just so grateful that we got out safe,” Crystal said.

The damage to Crystal and Jeff Findlay’s West Kelowna home and business after the McDougall Creek wildfire tore through it. (Submitted)

The couple says while they have insurance and are hopeful to rebuild, they are devastated.

“My husband and I poured our heart and soul into it. We started it just the two of us. We’re not a big business, we worked very hard and we’ve invested everything into it. We felt that we had it at a point where things were going to move forward,” Crystal explained.

“It’s more than just our home and our belongings, it’s a huge part of our life that we’ve invested for the past six years.”

Despite the damage, the couple is thankful for the efforts of first responders who helped get them out safely.

“Everybody is doing the best they can right now and we’re just so thankful that the community has come together and shown us that this is a good place to live in,” said Jeff.