{"id":795040,"date":"2026-07-11T13:01:30","date_gmt":"2026-07-11T13:01:30","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/795040\/"},"modified":"2026-07-11T13:01:30","modified_gmt":"2026-07-11T13:01:30","slug":"passerby-details-futile-attempt-to-stifle-b-c-fire-with-frying-pan-before-it-became-an-inferno","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/795040\/","title":{"rendered":"Passerby details futile attempt to stifle B.C. fire with frying pan before it became an inferno"},"content":{"rendered":"

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

A helicopter drops water while fighting the Brunswick Creek wildfire in Boston Bar, B.C., on Thursday.DARRYL DYCK\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

Fernando Balanta says he was on a trip to the landfill in Boston Bar, B.C., on July 2 when the journey took a surreal turn.<\/p>\n

He and others found themselves trying to extinguish a fire that had started on both sides of the road, stomping on it and even using a frying pan to try to smack it out.<\/p>\n

But the fire, fanned by gusty winds, would not go out, as Mr. Balanta and others called it in. <\/p>\n

The BC Wildfire Service would later identify the landfill road as the original site of the Brunswick Creek fire that was discovered that day.<\/p>\n

It would later combine with the Ainslie Creek blaze into a fire complex that has triggered hundreds of evacuation orders and alerts in and around the Fraser Canyon community.<\/p>\n

\u201cThere\u2019s already a couple of people filming it and there\u2019s a couple people deciding to report it. So we all reported it,\u201d said Mr. Balanta, a visitor to the town of about 160 residents, as he recalled the early stages of the fire.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt just started kind of getting a little scary. [I] started seeing how it was developing and realized that this thing was potentially going to be very serious.\u201d <\/p>\n

B.C. fire complex grows, destroys buildings and triggers a wave of evacuation alerts<\/a><\/p>\n

In a video posted on Mr. Balanta\u2019s YouTube channel, dated July 2, people can be heard discussing putting out the flames burning in the brush.<\/p>\n

\u201cCan we stomp on that?\u201d one person is heard asking. \u201cNo, because your shoes are gonna melt after a little bit,\u201d replies Mr. Balanta.<\/p>\n

Nevertheless, he can later be seen stomping on flaming grass and at one point smacking the flames with a pan. But gusts of winds fanned the flames toward him.<\/p>\n

Mr. Balanta, who had been staying with a friend in Boston Bar for a couple of weeks, said in an interview on Thursday that it\u2019s possible flames on one side of the road could have been put out if more people were there to help, but the other side was \u201ccompletely on fire.\u201d<\/p>\n

The Brunswick complex has now scorched a total of about 180 square kilometres.<\/p>\n

When the Ainslie Creek wildfire ripped through Blue Lake Resort earlier this week, many structures were lost, including the home of the resort\u2019s operations manager Saeed Mansouri and his wife, who are set to celebrate their first anniversary later this month. <\/p>\n

Video posted<\/a> by resort owner Shayne Findlay shows the house has been completely levelled to smoking ruins.<\/p>\n

Mr. Mansouri said he ended up at the resort after he became homeless and moved from Alberta to B.C., living in his SUV during the COVID-19 pandemic, and being attacked multiple times.<\/p>\n

He said he had camped at Blue Lake before, calling it a \u201cspecial place,\u201d where the owners offered him a job and a place to live. He never left.<\/p>\n

Mr. Mansouri has now lost everything in the fire, including decades of poetry written in his native Farsi language and photos of his childhood.<\/p>\n

\u201cThose were the only copies. I kept them all. [There were also] letters from my dad. My dad passed away back in 2012,\u201d he said.<\/p>\n

Mr. Mansouri praised the efforts of the firefighters but said the blaze \u201cwas so big and there was nothing anybody could do with any equipment.\u201d<\/p>\n

The latest update from the BC Wildfire Service on Friday said crews were expecting slightly lower temperatures and higher relative humidity, while warning that this \u201cdoes not represent a downturn in conditions, just a two-day slight reprieve.\u201d<\/p>\n

\u201cThis will help moderate fire behaviour; however when steep slopes and gusty wind conditions align, we are likely to see higher activity,\u201d the update said. <\/p>\n

Open this photo in gallery:<\/a><\/p>\n

CN Rail workers on a firefighting train travel past the Brunswick Creek wildfire in Boston Bar, B.C., on Thursday.DARRYL DYCK\/The Canadian Press<\/p>\n

The fire service said 270 firefighters were assigned to the complex along with 17 helicopters and 37 pieces of heavy equipment.<\/p>\n

Operations are running 24 hours a day, the service said, including with helicopters equipped with night-vision capabilities. <\/p>\n

But crews face challenging circumstances in the steep and mountainous terrain. <\/p>\n

\u201cThere are some areas we simply cannot put crews because it is not safe for them to be working there, and even working downslope can also create safety concerns because of issues such as rolling debris,\u201d fire information officer Julia Caranci said on Thursday.<\/p>\n

Boston Bar resident Kelly Anderson said the anxiety and adrenalin spikes of the last few days were exhausting, but she was glad the firefighters were on the ground.<\/p>\n

\u201cAs long as they\u2019re in between us and the fire, I\u2019m feeling a lot more comfortable about it,\u201d she said.<\/p>\n

Jagdip Singh Bihal has been opening his highway-side restaurant in Boston Bar earlier than usual to accommodate the wildfire crews.<\/p>\n

Mr. Bihal runs JB\u2019s Drive-In Restaurant, just a few hundred metres down Highway 1, where the route has been closed owing to the fires on either side of the Fraser River.<\/p>\n

He said the fires turned ugly over the past week as the winds picked up, and he\u2019s not seen anything like it in the four years he\u2019s been running the diner.<\/p>\n

Mr. Bihal said he couldn\u2019t get a supplier to deliver to his restaurant, so he sent people to Surrey in his own van to stock up.<\/p>\n

He said it\u2019s been scary for much of the town. \u201cHopefully it\u2019s going to rain and help us,\u201d Mr. Bihal said.<\/p>\n

An online fundraiser has been launched for Mr. Mansouri and his wife to help them create new memories. For now, he said he\u2019s doing his best to look ahead.<\/p>\n

\u201cIt\u2019s a big loss, but it is what it is. And all we have to do at this point is just get going and just think of [the] future.\u201d<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"Open this photo in gallery: A helicopter drops water while fighting the Brunswick Creek wildfire in Boston Bar,…\n","protected":false},"author":2,"featured_media":795041,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[4],"tags":[901,888,902,879,877,903,49,48,876,895,896,891,878,875,46,549,295,894,887,914,880,881,893,889,890,884,904,885,909,910,44,912,907,911,905,908,882,898,899,714,897,906,865,61,900,892,886,883,913],"class_list":["post-795040","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","category-canada","tag-alberta","tag-arts-news","tag-bc","tag-breaking-news","tag-breaking-news-video","tag-british-columbia","tag-ca","tag-canada","tag-canada-news","tag-canada-sports","tag-canada-sports-news","tag-canada-trafficcanada-weather","tag-canadian-breaking-news","tag-canadian-news","tag-economy","tag-education","tag-environment","tag-federal-government","tag-foreign-news","tag-globe-and-mail","tag-globe-and-mail-breaking-news","tag-globe-and-mail-canada-news","tag-government","tag-life-news","tag-lifestyle","tag-local-news","tag-manitoba","tag-national-news","tag-new-brunswick","tag-newfoundland-and-labrador","tag-news","tag-northwest-territories","tag-nova-scotia","tag-nunavut","tag-ontario","tag-pei","tag-photos","tag-political-news","tag-political-opinion","tag-politics","tag-politics-news","tag-quebec","tag-sports-news","tag-technology","tag-travel","tag-trudeau","tag-us-news","tag-world-news","tag-yukon"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795040","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/2"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=795040"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/795040\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/795041"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=795040"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=795040"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.newsbeep.com\/ca\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=795040"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}