Wildfires force 14,000 to evacuate
Shifting winds and dry conditions have officials fearing more to come
Angie Thorne hugs her granddaughter as she looks for the first time at the blackened pit where her Ashcroft home of 21 years stood just days earlier.
Thorne and her husband Randy escaped with their camper trailer on Friday before their home at the Ashcroft Indian Reserve burned to the ground. They returned Sunday to see what remained after a large wildfire engulfed their community, west of Kamloops.
“We made many memories here,” Thorne said, falling silent as tears streamed from behind her sunglasses.
She held up a charred metal sign that used to hang near her front door that read: “Welcome to our home.”
“It all seems like my material stuff, but ... everything that was in this home, we worked hard all our lives for,” she said. “We didn’t have the newest or best stuff, but it was ours. It was our family’s.”
Most of the homes on the reserve were destroyed by the Ashcroft Reserve wildfire, which was burning more than 60 square kilometres Monday — one of 218 wildfires that have lit the province ablaze and have forced the evacuation of 14,000 people.
With hot, dry conditions and wind in the forecast, officials braced for the worst.
A city-wide evacuation alert was issued Monday evening for Williams Lake. Its residents, numbering more than 10,000, have to be ready to leave at a moment’s notice in case strong winds forecast for Wednesday push wildfires burning in the Hanceville area — about 60 kilometres southwest of Williams Lake — toward the city.
The Hanceville fires, estimated at 10,000 hectares, may seem far away, but depending on the winds, it could spread to Williams Lake rapidly, officials said.
“This is precautionary,” said Milo MacDonald, chief administrative officer for Williams Lake. “Some might believe we are erring on the side of being overly cautious, but we are erring on the side of preparing people.”
The Cariboo Regional District also issued an evacuation alert for people living on the fringes of Williams Lake. The town is already dealing with a “complex” of fires burning nearby — made up of the Wildwood fire near the airport and the fire at 150 Mile House — scorching about 10,000 hectares.
As many as 25,000 in the city of Williams Lake and its surrounding areas are affected by the fires, with up to 13,000 covered by Monday’s evacuation alerts.
“Winds and weather are not going to be in our favour starting Wednesday,” said Cariboo Regional District’s Al Richmond.
Also on Monday, 49 households north of Princeton were evacuated, bringing the number of evacuated homes in the area to 350.
Kevin Skrepnek, B.C.’s chief fire information officer, said 29 new fires were ignited Sunday, a lower figure compared to previous days due to less lightning activity.
A dramatic wind shift in the 5,000-hectare Gustafsen wildfire caused the evacuation of 100 Mile House Sunday (1,950 residents).
Mayor Mitch Campsall hasn’t slept in two nights.
“The evacuation was a complete shock, we were not expecting it,” he said. “It took the search and rescue team about 45 minutes to deliver the (evacuation) letters. Within an hour and a half everybody was out of town ... We had no hassles, nothing. It was absolute textbook. Flawless. It couldn’t have gone any better.”
No houses, businesses or infrastructure have been lost in 100 Mile House.
On Monday morning, authorities took the rare step of issuing a provincewide campfire ban with the exception of Haida Gwaii and a narrow strip of land on the west side of Vancouver Island.
“We are just seeing such a high hazard across the province right now that this was necessary,” Skrepnek said.
About 300 firefighters from Alberta, Saskatchewan, Ontario and New Brunswick began arriving Monday to reinforce the 1,000 B.C. firefighters and help spell off some of the exhausted crews.
“This is only 10 days into July and there is potential that we could see this continue,” Skrepnek said. “Our people need to pace themselves, and that plays into why we are bringing in out-of-province crews and contract crews.”
Alberta Premier Rachel Notley said Alberta understands how traumatic wildfires can be for communities after residents of Fort McMurray were forced to flee a massive wildfire last year.
“We’re all part of the same country and we know ourselves that these can be very, very trying times and we have a lot of expertise here in Alberta,” Notley said Monday.
Alberta has sent about 100 firefighters and 60 other support staff to B.C., while Saskatchewan is sending 30 firefighters, two tankers, and one airplane.
Smoke from the wildfires also caused delays and a handful of cancellations at Kamloops airport Monday afternoon.
“There are a number (of planes) that have circled,” the airport’s managing director Fred Legace said. “One has gone back to Vancouver, a couple may have to go back to Calgary and then try again. The valley is really charged with smoke.”
Back at the Ashcroft Reserve, members of the Thorne family expressed relief they were safe.
“My granddaughter said on the way here, we were looking at the devastation coming down the valley, and she said all that matters is that we’re all safe,” Angie Thorne said. “Coming from an eight-yearold, we can learn from that.”
The family’s seven-month-old cat survived the inferno, her blackened whiskers singed and curled from the heat.
“Bigger and better, eh babe?” Thorne said to her husband Randy, surveying the damage.
He squeezed her shoulder: “We’ll rebuild.”