People had to be rescued from Okanagan Lake when the McDougall Creek wildfire raged through Traders Cove on Aug. 17. It's not known, at this time, if they had refused to evacuate or just didn't have time.

Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Kevin Moffat

Thousands of residents in the Southern Interior have been ordered to evacuate this summer due to wildfires.

There are still 3,700 under evacuation order in the Shuswap because of the Bush Creek East Wildfire and close to 500 in the Central Okanagan due to the McDougall Creek Wildfire.

Around 350 properties have been seriously damaged by these massive blazes.

While the vast majority of people have obeyed the orders and left the fate of their homes in the hands of professional firefighters, there are also many who stayed.

“We had people trapped,” West Kelowna Fire Rescue Chief Jason Brolund said at a news conference Aug. 18, the day after the McDougall Creek Wildfire damaged structures on 189 properties in and around his city.

“That’s a fire chief’s worse nightmare. Those emergency responders were trapped because they were rescuing members of the public who had chosen not to leave.”

He has yet to say how many people had to be rescued after refusing to evacuate.

Kelowna RCMP escorted people out of areas evacuated due to the McDougall Creek fire after they snuck back in. Some have been arrested but they haven’t been charged with violating evacuation orders – at least not yet.

READ MORE: Arrests have been made in wildfire evacuation zones: Kelowna RCMP

Of the 3,700 properties under evacuation orders in the Shuswap, it’s also unclear how many people refused to leave.

Their presence, along with the reported theft of firefighting equipment and a confrontation with a so-called Convoy of Truth and Freedom driving from Kamloops with supplies for those behind police lines, contributed to firefighters pulling out of the area on Aug. 24.

Tensions continue with BC Unity MLAs now being accused by the NDP of encouraging people to disobey evacuation orders, a charge the MLAs deny.

READ MORE: How wildfire in B.C.'s Shuswap region is fanning political flames

“If you are placed under an evacuation order, you must leave the area immediately,” Bowinn Ma, Minister of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness, said in an email to iNFOnews.ca. “This is not a recommendation. This is the law. People who choose to ignore an evacuation order put themselves, their families and wildfire personnel in harm’s way, as well as hinder firefighting efforts."

The law is called the Emergency Program Act and it allows governments to take control of property, limit or ban travel, enter and even demolish buildings, as well as ordering evacuations.

Violating any part of the act can result in $2,300 tickets, jail time for up to a year and/or fines up to $10,000.

That doesn’t mean that any of these stay-behinds should be worried for their pocketbooks or their freedom.

“No one has been charged under the Act this year,” the Ministry said in an email to iNFOnews.ca. “Our priority is to work with people in the affected areas and to gain cooperation through public education and awareness.”

It did not reply to repeated questions about charges or convictions in past years.

Refusing to evacuate is not new.

In 2021, the White Rock Lake Wildfire damaged or destroyed 76 properties in the Killiney Beach area north of the present fire.

Residents there were ordered to evacuate on Aug. 6 but some had to be rescued off docks when the fire tore through the community on the night of Aug. 15-16.

READ MORE: 'Anything that could be and would be saved, was saved:' North Westside fire chief says

Two years later, the same thing happened in the area of Traders Cove, just north of West Kelowna, that was hammered by the McDougall Creek Wildfire.

People had to be rescued from the waters of Okanagan Lake. No one has yet said whether they were people who got trapped by the fire and didn’t have time to leave or put firefighters in danger because they refused to leave.

The Ministry could not say if the tendency to refuse evacuation orders is on the increase nor whether firefighters have been injured rescuing people who refused to evacuate.

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