Interior Wildlife Rehabilitation Society in Summerland burnt down due to wildfire<\/p>\n
Published 3:27 pm Monday, August 17, 2026<\/p>\n
When the Bald Range Wildfire swiftly approached Interior Wildlife Rehabilitation Society (IWRS) in Summerland, Eva Hartmann gathered all the animals and evacuated.<\/p>\n
Hartmann and Jonathan Laumer, co-founders of IWRS, shared the daunting experience on Facebook<\/a>.<\/p>\n \u201cWhen we could feel the heat and hear the forest ablaze while ashes were raining from the skies, there was no time to pack anything besides the animals and ourselves.\u201d<\/p>\n \u201cOn our security cameras we could only watch the entire facility get engulfed by flames before the power went out and everything went black.\u201d<\/p>\n The Summerland facility burnt down due to the wildfire that evacuated almost 20,000 people.<\/p>\n \u201cAll \u2018material things\u2019 had to be left behind. At the facility and our private residence. We will have to rebuild. Once we can catch our breaths for the rest of this weekend,\u201d reads the post.<\/p>\n Animals that were not ready for release yet were transferred to the BC Wildfire Park in Kamloops.<\/p>\n A fundraiser<\/a> has been set up to rebuild the facility in Summerland.<\/p>\n