08/10/2026
This Story Needs to Get Out — The Timeline of the Fire May Not Be What Has Been Reported
Don and I have been talking about the handling of the initial 911 call about this fire all morning, and the more we talk about it, the more we feel that this story needs to be told.
There is a lot of information circulating on Facebook and social media saying that the fire was first spotted and reported around 5:15 PM. Based on what Don personally experienced, that does not appear to be the case.
We live on the Princeton–Summerland Road, and because Don was coming home from an appointment in Penticton, he was travelling the back road as we normally do.
Don reported this fire before 4:24 PM. Don also personally knows of another woman who says that she tried to report the fire approximately 20 minutes before he did.
Don and another couple had stopped at approximately KM 8 marker on the Princeton–Summerland Road because they could see the fire. The other person called the satellite option 911, (due to no cell coverage) but because she spoke very limited English, Don took over her phone and spoke directly with the 911 operator, who transferred the call to the Wildfire operator.
What happened during that call is concerning and raises some very important questions.
According to Don, the operator was having difficulty determining where the Princeton–Summerland Road was and was also unable to locate Faulder. Don repeatedly tried to explain exactly where the fire was and told the operator that they needed to get someone to the fire immediately because it was already growing rapidly.
While they were on the phone, Don watched the fire more than double in size.
Despite Don’s attempts to explain the location, he could see that the operator was having difficulty locating the area. At the time, nobody thought to obtain GPS coordinates, and as far as Don could tell during the call, the available location information was not leading the operator to the actual fire.
The only locations Don could see the operator finding were Meadow Valley and Dark Lake.
Eventually, the operator told Don that they would send a crew toward Dark Lake.
Don explained again that there was no fire at Dark Lake. He told the operator that the fire was on the Princeton–Summerland back road and that sending a crew to Dark Lake would not put them anywhere near the fire.
Don even suggested that if a helicopter was sent toward Dark Lake, they might at least be able to spot the fire from the air.
At that point, something needed to be done. A helicopter flying toward the wrong area but potentially spotting the fire would have been better than having nobody locate it.
And this is why the timeline matters.
The photograph below is time-stamped 4:24 PM, and Don took this picture after he had already spoken with the 911 operator.
So when we see reports saying the fire was first reported around 5:15 PM, we have to ask:
What happened during that hour?
Why was the fire not located sooner?
Why was it so difficult to determine the location when people were actively calling 911 and trying to explain exactly where they were seeing the fire?
And why does the reported timeline appear to be significantly later than what Don personally experienced?
We are not telling this story to create panic or to unfairly point fingers. We are sharing it because the timeline matters, and when a wildfire is growing rapidly, every minute matters.
Don was there. He saw the fire with his own eyes. He reported it before 4:24 PM. He watched it grow dramatically while he was on the phone trying to get help.
The photograph documents that it was taken at 4:24 PM.
We believe these questions deserve to be answered.
Our hope is that the actual timeline of those critical first minutes can be established and that, if there were problems with how the initial report was handled, those issues can be identified and addressed so that something like this can be handled better in the future.
People deserve to know what actually happened during those critical first minutes of this fire.
I have posted this story on several Okanagan and Princeton sites and some have taken my post down. Some say that it was AI created. It might show up as AI created because I did ask AI to check my spelling and wording and then copied it from there, but I wrote the story.
The last picture shows what Google says the timeline was when the fire was reported. 

