From geckos to goats and livestock, B.C. wildfires affect thousands of animals

The ferocious wildfire burning in British Columbia’s south Okanagan region has claimed one life and displaced more than 20,000 people, but its impacts go beyond human victims, with tens of thousands of farm animals and pets also affected.

The Bald Range fire threatening Summerland, B.C., and surrounding areas on the western shores of Okanagan Lake saw thousands flee over the weekend, and many brought dogs, cats and even goats with them.

But residents have also been forced to leave animals behind, filling social media feeds with pictures of people trying to find lost animals or connect owners with their singed and injured pets retrieved from the fire zone.

B.C. Agriculture Minister Lana Popham says an estimated 50,000 farm animals are facing the impacts of wildfires on 146 agricultural properties under evacuation orders and 123 subject to evacuation alerts.

Popham told a briefing that the animals may not be in imminent danger, but they are threatened, and the risk is being managed under a number of programs aimed at keeping them safe.

Dayna Joynt’s boyfriend Greg Gibbs has remained on his family’s property in Faulder, B.C., the tiny community that was overrun by the Bald Range fire west of Summerland, and she says he’s sheltering at least 20 horses that have ended up there “with nowhere to go.”

Joynt says she and others on the multi-family property got out on Friday evening with five dogs, four cats, and two goats. 

They didn’t have the capacity to get any of their horses out, and her daughter lost “geckos and lizards and snakes and her cats,” she says.

Pat Killen, 78, who was evacuated from her home in Summerland, B.C., due to the Bald Range wildfire and has been sleeping in her car, sits with her dogs Emma and Willow in the parking lot outside an evacuee centre, in Penticton, B.C., on Sunday, Aug. 9, 2026. The Bald Range wildfire in British Columbia’s south Okanagan region has forced 20,000 people out of their homes in the Peachland and Summerland areas.
THE CANADIAN PRESS/Darryl Dyck

Popham used Tuesday’s briefing on B.C.’s fire and drought situation to highlight the province’s Range Rider program, which brings livestock to safety during fires, floods or other emergencies.

“If a ranch is under threat by fire these folk head out on horseback or on ATVs and they find the cattle,” moving them to safety, she said.

It has been a success since it launched in 2021, she said, reducing livestock deaths.

Popham said the program recently helped the Coldwater Indian Band, when 1,500 cattle were moved within 24 hours after the community was placed under evacuation order due to the Brunswick complex of fires.

The minister said some livestock have been lost in the Bald Range fire, but the toll may not be known until the fall, when roaming cattle return home.

This report by The Canadian Press was first published Aug. 11, 2026

By Brieanna Charlebois | Copyright 2026, The Canadian Press. All rights reserved.