Woman and her friend witness Bolt Creek Fire early Saturday morning

Snohomish County, WA. – As the evacuations continue, many have shared pictures and videos of the Bolt Creek Wildfire online. Ginger Carpenter and her friend were at Beckler River Campground in Skykomish for a relaxing weekend.

Carpenter shared with KIRO7 what she woke up to in the early hours of Saturday morning.

“I woke up to this orange out of the peripheral vision out of our van,” Carpenter said. “And I was thinking that it was the sun coming up.”

“And as I was looking at it, it was moving. And I’m like … ‘Hey, Gabby. The hill is on fire,’” Carpenter said.

Carpenter said her camp host was quick to check on them once everyone noticed the sky and smoke. She says within the next 30 to 45 minutes, the camp host said emergency management called for an evacuation.

“The emergency services did a great job at notifying the camp hosts and all the campgrounds and letting them know that we needed to evacuate,” Carpenter said.

She says in that moment, she wasn’t majorly concerned for her and her friend since they were able to get out so quickly. But seeing how quickly the fire has spread, she’s very thankful they left when they did.

“We could’ve gotten caught up in all of the traffic of taking our time. But it was more, ‘No, this is pretty serious,’” Carpenter said.

She says the smoke and ash can be seen everywhere in the county. She says her vehicles are covered with ash, plus the amount of ash in the air has limited her son from being outside.

“So, he hasn’t been able to go outside and walk in his walker because of the air content and the ash,” Carpenter said.

But she says she’s happy to be home and she hopes everyone impacted by this wildfire takes safety seriously.

“When they say let’s go, you need to go. You need to go. Pack up what you can, but go!” Carpenter said.

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