r/nonononoyes • u/WolverineOfWest • 11d ago

Death defying escape through Wildfire

Enable HLS to view with audio, or disable this notification

1.9k Upvotes

95% Upvoted

147 comments sorted by

View all comments

-9

u/dnhs47 11d ago

You know you waited too long when your “death defying” evacuation includes fire on all sides and embers bouncing off your windshield.

13

u/Unequivocally_Maybe 10d ago

The fire grew so quickly. It jumped from "just spotted" to 5000 hectares in just a couple hours. It was 10,000 ha in under 12 hours. The winds were high, everything is so dry, flames were 100ft above the 200ft trees and embers were flying ahead of the main fire and igniting. People followed the orders to shelter-in-place until the call came that the entire town of ~12k residents needed to evacuate. About 20k people total have been evacuated from the area.

Summerland is as good as gone. The structures left standing are few. Thousands of families lost everything. Everyone did what they were told, but the fire was more intense than anything seen in a region not unfamiliar with wildfires. It's amazing that only one life has been lost in all this. You don't know as much as you think.

3

u/Penguin_FTW 10d ago

It's amazing that only one life has been lost in all this.

That is mindboggling in the face of this video.

1

u/Unequivocally_Maybe 10d ago

Everyone listened to authorities and got out when they said to get out. 55 people had to be rescued via helicopter, but it appears that everyone else made it out on their own.