B.C. resort owner says devastating wildfire was like a ‘Michael Bay film’

For years, the Blue Lake Resort in B.C.’s Fraser Canyon has been welcoming visitors from far and wide.

But the owners and staff are now facing their most challenging summer yet after a devastating wildfire swept through their property this week.

Global News accompanied one of the owners, Shayne Findlay, as he returned to the resort to see what the fire left behind.

“What we had here was, first it was the manager’s house, fairly old building, then we had another staff trailer, which is like a tiny home. And then these spots here belong to people who are seasonal renters. They would have their trailers up here,” Findlay said, gesturing to the burned and charred buildings.

“If you see the lines on the ground there, that was all sprinkled. They had sprinklers all the way around there. Didn’t matter.”

When the fire roared through the property, Findlay said, the pumps and the sprinklers were running, but it didn’t seem to matter.

“It meant nothing,” he said.

Now Findlay said the wildfire crews have been dropping danger trees so they can start addressing the hot spots and the rest of the trees surrounding the burned properties will need to be cut down.

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“You can’t have people in here to start cleaning up until the trees are gone,” he said.

“And then you can clean up the hazardous material. And then, and then, and then it’s measured in months, not weeks.”

Findlay said they are lucky they had enough notice to leave the property in a calm and orderly fashion.

But watching the fire on the resort’s webcams was hard.

“I was watching on the camera and it’s like a Michael Bay film, you know, big embers swirling, scattering,” he said.

“If the fire’s coming, it’s coming. That’s it.”

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Findlay added that he is touched by the outpouring of support that he has received from his loyal customers and visitors.

“Incredible outpouring of support,” he said.

“I can’t even get to all the comments of people and it’s just, you don’t, you know, you see them come and go and you think, yeah, we’re a place they go have vacation, but man, this is, it reframes it a lot. And that’s why it’s so important to, to keep an eye on the future and rebuilding. Because as much as I need this, I think they need it, too. And we’re going to … be here for them.”

Saeed Mansouri manages the resort’s operations. He lost everything in the fire.

“This was my home that I lived with my wife and worked here and unfortunately everything burned down,” he said.

“Everything, including my record collections, my vinyls, and most of all pictures and my poems. For 40 years, writing, everything’s gone. So never mind clothing, that’s nothing. But those are very valuable to me, but they’re gone.”

But Mansouri said he is keeping his spirits up and vowing to rebuild alongside the owners.

“I work on this every single day to make sure everything is done better than before,” he said.