The fight for Faulder: When B.C. brothers fought to save home from raging fire

A resident of Faulder, the tiny B.C. community that was largely obliterated by a wildfire on the weekend, has shared photographs and videos depicting two brothers’ battle to save the property where they grew up.

Dayna Joynt says her boyfriend, Greg Gibbs, and his brother stayed behind on Friday to fight the flames, even as authorities urged them to flee and the fire swept over the multi-family property.

Most of the community of about 215 residents was destroyed after the fire roared down on Friday night, but Joynt says Gibbs saved the house they shared and about four others, although the home where the Gibbs brothers were raised was among the many properties lost.

A video shot by Gibbs on Saturday shows Faulder shrouded by smoke, as small fires burn all around.

A second video shot that night is lit by the eerie glow from the fires, the air filled with embers and the forest echoing with cracking sounds from burning trees.

Joynt says there was “not a chance” that Gibbs would abandon his house, calling him a stubborn “hillbilly” who was born and raised in Faulder.

“That’s everything to him,” she said. “His entire family lives on that property. That’s everything he needs. Unfortunately, no insurance on it either, which is not good for the building aspects of it, but that’ll be figured out later down the road.”

“He was bound and determined, him and his brother, that they’re not leaving, to make sure that at least one structure’s standing so we all have somewhere to be under a roof and so we can figure out everything else.”

The night photos show smoke from the fire rising above a ridge, and work being done with an excavator inside the burning forest.

The daytime video is shot on Saturday from inside the cab of yellow machine, its engine still running.

The Bald Range wildfire bears down on the community of Faulder, B.C., on Friday, Aug. 7, 2026, in this handout photo taken by resident Greg Gibbs.THE CANADIAN PRESS/Handout — Greg Gibbs (Mandatory Credit)

The video pans around the Gibbs property.

“The bridge is almost saved, where I grew up is gone,” says Gibb, before identifying properties lost to the flames. “And who knows what else? Who knows what else?”

The camera then swings to a dishevelled Gibbs, his lips blackened and cracked, his face smeared with soot. 

He shakes his fist in apparent victory and lets out an expletive.

“Fought for it. I kept the house,” he says. 

Video footage taken by others shows the rest of the community in ruins, with not a single home left standing in a minute-long drive down Fish Lake Road.

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

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