Why a Peachland Farmer Isn’t Leaving Her Chickens

For Peachland resident Taryn Skalbania, summer has become synonymous with fleeing.

Since 2017, she has either evacuated or considered doing so six times as wildfires tore through the Okanagan’s tinder-dry tree plantations, grasslands and forests.

But what makes this wildfire season so different is its ferocity. The Bald Range fire that burned close to Skalbania’s home became a 5,000-hectare monster in just hours, forcing 20,000 residents in Summerland and nearby Peachland to evacuate.

Despite receiving an evacuation order, Skalbania elected to stay in her home. She told The Tyee that she chose to say because, if she leaves, she may not be allowed back to feed her prized turkeys and chickens.

It’s a dilemma that many rural residents and farmers in wildfire zones now face, and provincial Agriculture Minister Lana Popham says she hopes the issuance of temporary access permits will allow rural residents to “ carefully go back and see if their livestock is OK.”

But obtaining those permits is difficult, and not guaranteed for safety reasons. So Skalbania is staying in place — for now.

Skalbania saw the fire when it was in its infancy. She was on the road, heading home with hundreds of pounds of grocery-store-rejected fruit and vegetables that she planned to feed to her cows and turkeys, when she saw the smoke outside of Summerland.

“It was a small plume, but I could see how quickly the plume was building,” Skalbania recalled, adding she knew in her gut that it was the kind of fire “that goes crazy.”

Skalbania and her husband, Robert Taylor, knew almost immediately that they’d soon be told to leave their home and 14 acres of pasture and woodland behind.

Her son-in-law Ryan Vlooswyk arrived at midnight to help, making the two-hour drive from Falkland to rescue the couple’s three cows and a number of uninsured dirt bikes.

Vlooswyk knew what was at stake. Two weeks before, the Bradley Creek fire near Vernon had forced him and his wife and children to evacuate their home.

A friend, Jen Sanderson, and her kids also showed up at 2 a.m. to rescue three horses the couple were boarding. The horses were loaded onto a trailer and driven to stables in West Kelowna.

But that still left Skalbania and Taylor with 50 turkeys, 75 laying hens and 50 baby heritage chickens prized for their colourful blue, purple and copper-coloured eggs.

Birds are hard to move. Even if you can find someone who has a confined, roofed area suitable for birds, the chances are they have birds of their own. And no one wants “strange birds or a strange flock” mixing with their own for fear of avian flu, Skalbania said.