Mike Stohler said his Summerland winery, SummerGate, was hosting a 50-person wedding rehearsal party on Aug. 7 when guests began noticing what appeared to be a large, unusual cloud rising into the sky.
That “cloud” turned out to be a massive plume of smoke from the fast-moving Bald Range wildfire, which prompted the evacuation of Summerland and some neighbouring areas.
Stohler said they shut the party down early at 6:30 p.m. Two hours later, police appeared in their driveway and said everyone needed to leave immediately.
He and his wife Gillian are among several winery owners in the Summerland area who are anxiously waiting to find out how much damage the wildfire has done to their grapes and properties.
“Our concern for us now will be to what degree we are going to be having smoke taint on the grapes themselves,” he said. “Unfortunately we won’t know until we actually have picked the grapes and pressed those into juice.”
Farmers and wineries are permitted to apply for temporary access passes to visit their properties in the evacuation zones, but many say the process has been slow and frustrating.
Christine Coletta co-owns Okanagan Crush Pad, which includes Haywire Winery and Garnet Valley Ranch Winery in Summerland.
“Right now is a critical time for us. We have to get in and apply irrigation to our vineyard, or it will die,” she said.
Coletta said the wildfires have been a big blow for wineries in the region, noting they come after a January 2024 cold snap decimated crops and vine plants.
“Many people have started that replanting process, and we have young vines in the ground,” she said. “We’ve been working very hard all year long to make sure they get enough water so they can establish.”
Coletta said the wildfire struck during what’s usually peak season for wine tourism in the Okanagan.
“I’m hearing from my colleagues in other parts of the Okanagan that tourists have gone home, which is really a shame,” she said. “We really hope that when this thing all settles behind us, that people will remember to come to Summerland and the Okanagan in general.”
Stohler estimated the wildfires could cost his business hundreds of thousands of dollars.
Fruit growers in the region are also waiting to find out the toll the fires have had on their crops.
Adrian Arts, executive director of the B.C. Fruit Growers Association, said the wildfire struck at the height of Summerland’s peach season, and as the first apples of the year were due to be harvested.
Arts said hundreds of bins of peaches may have to be tossed, each bin weighing 300 to 400 pounds.
“It’s still too early to tell as to what the total damage is until we’re able to access our properties and do an assessment,” he said.
He also warned that the Okanagan apples that people see in grocery stores may be a little less red than normal this year due to the effects of smoke and high temperatures.
“I would just ask folks to not judge an apple by its color,” said Arts.
Arts said the wildfires are the latest in a series of blows for growers in recent years.
He pointed to the challenges of the COVID-19 pandemic, the intense heat dome in 2021, successive cold snaps, the closure of the B.C. Tree Fruits Cooperative, and the ongoing trade war with the U.S. Meanwhile, severe drought has forced many local governments to curtail water to food producers.
“Farmers are feeling climate change in a very immediate, very tangible, very real way at this point with multiple years of challenges,” said Arts. “And then this year, it’s just been brutal.”
Arts said the province has multiple programs to support farmers, but the scale is not close to what is needed.
“I think there needs to be a serious reconsideration based on multiple years of climate variability and climate crises and emergencies like wildfires, drought, freezes, that those programs weren’t meant to deal with successive years of consecutive loss,” he said. “Most of our members that we speak to at this point have said, we don’t feel supported.”
Agriculture Minister Lana Popham said in a wildfire situation update earlier this week that her ministry is in constant contact with farmers impacted by fires in the province. She said it would take months to assess the full extent of the damage to farms, ranches and vineyards.
