Chris Stewart was at his farm in Summerland when he first saw smoke rising from the west: the fast-moving Bald Range wildfire was closing in on the community.
At first, he took his wife and two young children to their condo in town. But within a few hours, they heard someone screaming in the alley to get out.
Nearly midnight, the family stepped outside. Gusts of wind and ash whipped through the streets. More than anything, Stewart said he remembers the sound of the fire hall siren—a never-ending and nearly unbearable wailing.
“Your world is turned upside down in that moment,” he said.
An Aug. 7 evacuation order warned that Highway 97 between Penticton
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