Cache Creek residents head home, but nearby Loon Lake on tenterhooks
While formerly evacuated residents were being allowed back to Cache Creek Tuesday, residents of Loon Lake, just to the north, were grimly waiting for news of the fate of their community.
Fire swept through the Loon Lake area on Friday and Saturday and according to preliminary reports, damage was heavy.
Langley Township firefighter Shawn Cahill has a cabin on the south side of the lake and drove up with a friend who also has a cabin in the area late Thursday when he heard a wildfire was approaching. The pair worked all day Friday to prepare their places for the approaching fire, then spent the night helping the local volunteer fire department fight the massive blaze.
“It was loud, like a jet engine,” Cahill said Tuesday of the fire, which would eventually consume his place. He had gone down to the western end of the lake to check the state of the fire, but realized the fire was already racing in.
“It was ridiculously fast,” he said. “It was ugly.”
In a Facebook post early Monday morning, the president of the Loon Lake department told owners of properties along the south side of the lake should prepare for the worst.
At nearby Cache Creek, residents were greeted by firefighters as they began to return home after more than a week away following an evacuation order.
Beginning at 3 p.m. Tuesday, groups of 40 to 50 cars at a time were allowed in to Cache Creek for an orderly return.
Emergency Management B.C.’s Robert Turner said families returning to Cache Creek would be provided with a cleanup kit from the Red Cross. The kit has to be physically collected, he said, so that people can be confirmed as having returned home.
Turner said new data showed there were now 45,806 evacuees provincewide. The vast majority had registered with emergency services.