Interior family is both fleeing, fighting fires
Linda Jorgensen was reduced to tears Sunday when one of her sons sent a photo of her 1,650-squarefoot, two-storey home in 150 Mile House.
Two days after a fire evacuation order affecting the Cariboo community, south of Williams Lake on Highway 97, the home was still untouched even as others’ homes and structures had burned to the ground.
“I started crying because it was standing,” Jorgensen, a realtor, said Monday. Others did not fare as well. “There are structures down, for sure at least 12, including homes and mobile homes. The fire would come right up to a house and go around it. Very strange to see. You’ll hear a lot of those stories.”
She spoke with one resident who sneaked back Saturday and started “bawling because she stood in her yard and put out hot spots, hauling buckets of water up from the pond and said the (neighbour’s) log home in front of her burned.”
Jorgensen has lived in 150 Mile House for about 25 years with her husband, Eric. Their two sons, Tyler, 34, and Mitch, 36, also live there in separate homes, and all have been uprooted by multiple fires swirling around the community.
Jorgensen is separated from them due to road closures, but is safe, staying at the family’s recreational cabin on Quesnel Lake. “It’s very smoky here on the lake. I have a really big body of water. The plan is to get in the boat.”
Her husband and sons are staying with two sets of friends in smoke-choked Williams Lake, and both sons, who served as volunteer firefighters several years ago, have been enlisted to help fight the fires around 150 Mile House.
“Tyler said he now has his own truck and a crew because he’s one of the more experienced ones,” she said. “Right now, they’re saying 150 Mile might be the safest place to be” despite the fires in the area being “zero per cent contained.”
Power was restored to 150 Mile on Monday and Jorgensen is feeling better about events, although she has serious concerns about Williams Lake.
“Williams Lake is surrounded by fire. It is a very unsafe place to be, the air quality is super bad there right now.”
Tyler left his property Friday before officially told to do so. “The natural gas plant is behind him and the line comes right through his property,” she said. “The sirens went off before the police came up her road. He knew to go.”
She and her husband don’t know the condition of 10 lambs and two steers on their two-hectare property or thousands of dollars worth of meat. “He’s a butcher and he’s got coolers full of meat. He’s very concerned.”
Her sons cannot go onto their properties, but at least drove by to ensure that all three homes are still standing.
Jorgensen said there has been miscommunication among authorities, including RCMP telling residents they need a permit from the Cariboo Regional District to go check on their animals, but the district is saying they provide no such permits.
“There’s been misinformation, confusion, a lot of that,” she said. “No one knew what was going on because there was no good information..”