‘I’m not a hero’: Summerland man gifts camper to help family displaced by wildfire

Numerous Summerland residents are searching for accommodation after the Bald Range wildfire reduced their homes to ash and rubble last month, and other residents are pulling together to help.

Stuart Town has lived on an acreage in the southeastern part of the city for more than two decades. He watched from a distance as the other side of town was engulfed in flames on Aug. 8 and into the following morning.

“Almost all of the damage was out in an area called Faulder, west of the town in a rural area,” he said. “I know quite a few people who lost everything, and lots of them didn’t have insurance because they lived in rural areas and insurance is really expensive.”

Roughly 150 structures were burned down in the rapidly moving blaze. Thousands of residents evacuated to Peachland and Penticton before returning to their properties on Aug. 18, with some coming home to find their houses burned to the ground.

Like many other local residents, Town wanted to help impacted families, so last week he donated a 30-foot travel trailer he’d been using as a spare bedroom for company for a few years. The trailer is old, has a leak in the roof and a tarp on it, but it’s liveable, and it didn’t take long to find someone who needed it.

“A young couple with three small children showed up to get it,” he said. “We started talking and the kids came out of the truck and started running around. That’s tough to see.

“They’ll probably live in it for awhile until they rebuild or get something better. That was the only hope, to help somebody out.”

Town has longtime friends in Summerland who are also making efforts to help provide housing for those in need.  

“People are really stepping up to provide temporary accommodations for others while they rebuild,” he said. “There’s stuff like that happening all over the place here.

“I’m not a hero here, for us it was just an old trailer but for them it’s a place to live.” 

Town was at the Thunder Mountain Raceway in Kelowna when the first plumes of smoke could be seen billowing into the sky over Summerland late in the evening on Aug. 8.

“We bolted home and the town was in panic, everyone was moving trailers and boats around,” he said. “I got on my motorcycle and rode the perimeter of the town to see how much danger we were in.”

He watched Cartwright Avenue, the most westerly residential street that comes up to the base of Cartwright Mountain, barely miss getting consumed by flames.

“The fire was coming down the mountain toward those houses, right into their yards,” he said. “The fire department saved them. A couple of houses were lost where the sparks jumped over a small hill.

“I really have to hand it to the fire departments involved, there were probably fifty trucks responding from around the province.”

Town said parts of the city will take time to rebuild, but in the meantime, the community is pulling together.

“Residents are giving to one another,” he said. “It’s an example of how much stuff we can do without, and how we can help with whatever we have.”