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Lois Wager was in her home when the call came. Wager and daughter Jessica (and hubby Al) run a "pony camp" on their large, horse-friendly property southwest of Penticton, and she was busy setting up the next event while Al was out of town.
On the other end of the line was Jessica. She'd seen something in the sky on that Friday afternoon, on the other side of the mountain. It looked much like a cloud, but there was something about it that just didn't fit the blue-sky scenario.
So Jessica, who lives in a separate house on the grounds, drove up the road, past the cattle guard, to get a better look. And now she was sure she was staring straight at wildfire smoke.
"I think we have a problem," she told her mom over the phone.
Lois met Jessica at the cattle guard, took one look and said, "Uh-oh."
It was approximately 3 pm on July 29. Just a few hours later the fire was given a name -- Keremeos Creek. And in the coming 24 to 48 hours it would grow to become one of the most dangerous and noteworthy in the province.
But right now, Lois and Jessica were two of very few people who even knew of its existence. The area between Kaleden and Keremeos, between Twin Lakes and Apex Mountain, is sparsely populated and severely undulating, and a fire could theoretically burn a while without much notice.
"We live on Sheep Creek Road," said Wager, referring to a rural thoroughfare so insignificantly traveled that Google Maps offers a street view of just the first kilometer or so.
"You can’t see what's on the other side of the mountain. You see the smoke but then you find out the fire is closer to Green Mountain Road (several kilometers to the west), and you think that's a fair distance away. It's hopefully not coming here."
The next day, said Wager, as action was ramping up at the fire's epicenter near Green Mountain Road, there was an air of "calmness" at her Sheep Creek property.
"There was no evacuation alert," she said, adding that the smoke looked only marginally more threatening in the morning than it had the night before.
Nevertheless, mom and daughter ultimately opted to take no chances. They had 12 horses, three of which were boarded, and numerous cats and dogs on the property. They agreed to start evacuating them. Just in case.
By Saturday night, they were glad they had. An evacuation alert had now gone into effect (where folks are told to be ready for a potential evacuation order), and the fire looked substantially more ominous.
"We just stood in the driveway," said Wager. "And all we could see in that direction was bright red. You could actually hear the trees burning. And I just walked into the house, shut the door, and started packing."
Sunday morning, Lois woke up to a "flurry of activity."
"Helicopters with buckets flying right over our roof," she said. "For the first time I could see where they were dropping the buckets of water. It was right there. The fire was coming over the top of the mountain.
"And that’s when I sort of broke down. I sat in the middle of the yard and started sobbing. 'Oh my god, I'm going to lose everything. Will I have a home? Will I have a business? What do I do?'"
But for Wager, that was the turning point. As the blaze grew increasingly closer, her exposure to the people fighting the thing increased. As did her sense of confidence. And her appreciation for all the unheralded stuff that goes on in the midst of battle.
And that's the primary message she wants to get out.
"It's during this time that you have all the structural support people coming out on your property," she said. "They come, they look around, they take pictures, they tell you what to remove, they tell you about sprinklers, they'll put bladders on your property.
"They started moving stuff too. They were so nice to me, saying we've done a good job around our property (FireSmarting their home), but I was looking at firewood that shouldn’t be where it was. I'm looking at items that shouldn't be close to my house and I'm thinking we could have done so much better.
"I didn't know any of this was going to happen. It was just great."
Later, she watched all the "heavy machinery" heading up Sheep Creek Road toward the smoke and said she was "impressed and overwhelmed with that too."
"I was just so impressed with the activity of the ground personnel. Everything they have in place to fight a fire, I didn't even know existed.
"And everyone was so comforting."
On Monday, BC Day, Wager's property and several more in the immediate neighbourhood got the order. They had to evacuate, and they had 20 minutes to do it.
"They drive up and hand you a piece of paper," she said. "Everything is official. It had never happened to me in my life. I moved here from the coast.
"And they told us to leave every gate open when we evacuate so they have a way to get out in case they get encased in here during the fire."
Jessica went to a friend's place, taking the rest of the dogs and cats with her. Lois headed for Penticton and registered at the evacuation centre.
"I ended up in a hotel, not realizing they can help you do that too," she said. "And then I broke down again. I called and said, 'They’re doing a massive back-burn behind my property and I need support,' and she had someone call me within the hour.
"He was so calming, he was so helpful."
Wager also has high praise for the Animal Lifeline Emergency Response Team (ALERT).
"They called me Saturday morning," she said, "and came by and dropped off their card Saturday night. I called them before we had the evacuation and asked what to do about cat carriers. And they brought cat carriers to me within 30 minutes of the order. I'm not kidding."
Wager's evacuation continued through to Wednesday of this week, when she finally got the message on her cell that the alert had been lifted.
"We happened to be at the (Twin Lakes) golf course looking at the fire at the time," she said. "We got the message and we literally drove down the road, turned left and saw the crew who gave us a re-entry package.
"And then we went to the house. It was emotional, I'm not going to lie."
According to Wager, there was water damage to the side of the house. The carpet on the porch needed to be removed. Ants and other "little critters" had infiltrated the interior, likely fleeing the blaze. And not too surprisingly, there was heavy smoke odor inside and a line of "scorched" trees a half kilometer behind the property.
And today, 16 days since the fire ignited, Lois Wager still sees the odd "puff of smoke" from the other side of the mountain. Just enough to know it's not yet fully extinguished.
But considering the circumstances, considering the fire spread within days to cover nearly 7,000 hectares, and considering how close it came to her house and her land, she knows the outcome could have been so much worse. And she's deeply thankful.
"It just needs a good cleanup and a few things replaced, but overall it's good. It's great," she said.
"But our home is still here because of the support, communication and teamwork of amazing people. There will never be enough thanks issued. Never."
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