B.C. residents go home after fleeing wildfires
Tens of thousands of anxious British Columbia residents who were forced to escape raging wildfires have returned home in recent days as firefighters made progress and conditions improved.
About 20,000 people remained displaced on Monday, but that number was down from 45,000 last week, said Chris Duffy, executive director of operations at Emergency Management B.C.
People have returned to 100 Mile House and its surrounding areas, as well as Princeton, Cache Creek and Lac La Hache, all communities where evacuation orders have been downgraded to alerts, he said.
“Those are thousands and thousands of people starting to mobilize and return home, so those numbers can change quite dramatically,” Duffy said.
Residents of an area northwest of 100 Mile House were cleared to go home Monday, as were people from the communities of Little Fort and Clearwater, north of Kamloops.
An evacuation order is still in effect for 10,000 residents of Williams Lake. The Cariboo Regional District is pressing ahead with plans for re-entry, although city official Geoff Payton said unpredictable conditions make it impossible to set a firm date for a return.
Duffy said the hope is for Williams Lake residents to return “early to mid-week.”
Regional districts make decisions to lift or impose evacuation orders, with advice from wildfire and emergency officials.
Firefighters caught a break on Sunday when a windstorm failed to stir up the flames. Nineteen new fires were sparked, with nine caused by lightning, five blamed on humans and the rest under investigation. B.C. Wildfire Service information officer Navi Saini warned more winds were anticipated in the Cariboo region on Wednesday and Thursday, combined with thunder showers, but without a significant amount of rain.
Although the wind storm didn’t kick up the fires, it did topple trees and bring down power lines in B.C.’s Shuswap region as well as around Golden and Revelstoke.
There were no reports of injuries but B.C. Hydro said thousands of customers were still in the dark on Monday and estimates of when power might be restored would have to wait until crews stretched thinly by wildfire repairs could assess the extent of the problem.
More than 750 fires have scorched about 3,700 square kilometres since April 1 in B.C.