‘It’s déjà vu’: Bradley Creek wildfire evacuees waiting to go home say they’ve been here before

Accompanied by his dog, cat and a small chicken in a crate, Tyler Bonneau sits eating lunch on a table outside the Vernon Recreation Centre.

“This is the only one on my flock that came with me,” Tyler told iNFOnews.ca. “All the rest of them are all gone.”

It’s been almost two weeks since Tyler and thousands of members and residents on the Okanagan Indian Band were forced to evacuate because of the Bradley Creek and Quilpituk Creek wildfires.

Tyler is very upbeat for a man who’s been living in a tent for the last 12 days.

He was offered a hotel room, but figured he’d leave rooms for people with kids and elders. He also has his animals.

Tyler recalls he was sitting in his trailer on Six Mile Road when a weird sound made him look outside.

“That’s when I saw… the fire creeping across the top of the mountain,” he said. “Then I heard my cousins yelling, fire, fire, fire.”

Tyler grabbed his dog, cat, one of the chickens, a backpack for their food, some clothes and left.

He knows his trailer is still standing, but he has no idea when he will get to go back home.

For his step mom, Sylvia Louis, sitting at the table eating with him, she’d been through it before.

“This is our second time around,” Louis said, referring to the White Rock Lake fire in 2021.

“I think it was August 1 (we got evacuated) and then we got back the day before school started,” she said.

Almost everyone evacuated has been there before.

“It’s déjà vu,” Okanagan Indian Band member Gwen Torres said. “Once you go through it once, and you see it once, and you see the flames once, that’s something you never forget.”

Torres said when she first saw the fire in the distance, she didn’t think much of it, but then the wind picked up, and she was quick to move.

“We’re fortunate enough, and I try to say, as far as I know, all humans got out,” she said.

It’s the first day with blue sky in roughly a week, and there’s an air of resilience in the evacuees sitting around outside the Okanagan Indian Band emergency support services location at the Vernon rec centre.

Torres said there’s a different feeling than in the first few days after being evacuated.

“Initially you’re just always kind of low-key anxious,” she said. “You’re anxious, and you’re wandering around, and you’re meeting all your relatives, and everybody’s low-key anxious, and everybody’s worried about lots of things, and you’re worried about the people who… lost their homes.”

While she doesn’t know when she’ll be allowed back, Torres didn’t lose her home.

“If you still have your house, it’s hard to complain,” Torres said. “You’re staying in town, and you’ve got a bed to lay in, and you’ve got food to eat. You can’t really complain.”

Like others she remembers clearly the five-to six-week-long evacuation in 2021.

“The first week you’re in shell shock, the second week… you kind of start to get used to it. By the third week… you really want to be home,” she said.

She misses the simple things like making herself a piece of toast.

Westside Road resident John Stephenson said straight up he’s one of the lucky ones.

“I have the luxury of just having to take care of myself,” he said.

He stayed behind for two days after the evacuation order was issued, getting his property ready.

“The cops came and knocked on the door. They were really good about it…they were pretty lenient,” he said.

Stephenson brought his trailer into town so as not to take a hotel bed from someone who really needed it.

He said he’s tired and fatigued, but nothing compared to other people has nothing to complain about.

“This is the second round and we’ve been lucky twice. I don’t know if we’re going to be lucky a third time,” Stephenson said. “Everybody is at risk.”

Sitting in the shade outside the rec centre, Teresa Bonneau talks very softly about being evacuated for a second time.

“I’m worried about my older brother… who lost his house,” she said. “To lose everything. He never had time to grab his pets.”

Her property is OK, but her nephews and some friends have also lost their homes. The Okanagan Indian Band estimated about 230 structures were lost in the fire.

Like others, she speaks about how lucky she is, even though she has been evacuated for almost two weeks.

“I’m a very optimistic person,” she said.

Tyler said you can’t change what happened and there’s no point “freaking out.”

“It can bring your mental well-being down, and that brings your immune system down, and you get sick more,” he said.

While the Bradley Creek wildfire is now being held and some evacuated residents have been allowed back to their properties, there’s no timeline for how long it will take for everyone to go home.

With memories of 2021, everyone hopes it won’t be too long before they’re allowed back.

“We have a period of time until we get home, and then we’ll get home,” Torres said. “For us lucky ones who have a home to go to.”