Entire city and area of Williams Lake

PRINCE GEORGE — Th The provincial wildfire crisis took a dramatic turn for the worse Saturday evening as the entire city of Williams Lake and its surrounding area were ordered evacuated. With the main highway, Hwy. 97, cut just to the north of the city by firefighting efforts and far to the south by the Ashcroft-Cache Creek fire, the order meant thousands were heading south on Hwy. 97, then cutting east on the only other highway out, Hwy. 24, a secondary highway. From the junction with Hwy. 5 near Little Fort, evacuees were told to head south of Kamloops. The timing of the evacuation, ordered just before 6 p.m., was driven by fears that fires could shortly cut that last route out of Williams Lake. “I think basically, Mother Nature is sort of bringing forward our worst-case scenario,” Cariboo Regional District Chairman Al Richmond said as winds began to pick up Saturday afternoon, prompting the expansion of evacuation orders and alerts. Alek Sharman, whose family owns Tim Hortons in Williams Lake, said just before 7 p.m. that residents were being told there is no immediate danger to the city. (Late Saturday, the mayor of Williams Lake was reported as saying flames had crept to within three kilometres of his city). The Thompson-Nicola Regional District has now posted an evacuation alert for areas around Little Fort and north to Clearwater, including the now all-important junction of Hwy. 24 and Hwy. 5, warning of imminent danger from fires and telling people to be ready to flee on a moment’s notice. Dave Cady of the Williams Lake Indian Band said he understood the fire jumped the Fraser River on the west side of Williams Lake, north of town. There have been other flare ups in the area as well, he said. “The traffic is unbelievable,” he said, of the fleeing residents. Television showed a long line of traffic heading slowly south on Hwy. 97. Shortly after 7 p.m., a large area south of Quesnel was ordered evacuated, with people being told to head south on side roads because of the Hwy 97 closure just north of Williams Lake and then follow the same route to Kamloops laid out for people in Williams Lake. The city of Williams Lake normally has a population of about 11,000, with 9,000 more in surrounding areas that were also ordered evacuated. However, thousands had already left the Cariboo city in recent days. Earlier in the afternoon Saturday, the forecast high winds that had put nerves on edge began to fan the flames of fires in the Cariboo. Members of the First Nation community of Xatsull 25 km north of Williams Lake, where some had refused to leave and stayed to fight fires, fled the community early Saturday afternoon. “Winds picked up and huge fires all around us,” Jacinda Mack, a community member who had stayed behind to support firefighters said by email around 2 p.m. “Everybody moving north huge, huge smoke.” Many of Williams Lake’s residents have already left voluntarily, however the order means thousands more will have to leave. The city said buses were positioned in 12 areas of the city for people who did not have their own vehicle available. “Residents in these areas who are unable to self-evacuate must make their way to a muster point in the city immediately as buses departing the city cannot wait indefinitely. If residents are unable to get to a muster point, please call the RCMP immediately,” the evacuation order read. Raging wildfires in British Columbia had already displaced more than 17,000 people, while the provincial government said earlier Saturday that another 27,000 people had been told they may need to leave their homes at a moment’s notice. Kevin Skrepnek, B.C.’s chief fire information officer, had warned at 1 p.m. Saturday that gusty winds would set off extreme and violently aggressive fire behaviour. He says crews have been preparing for the winds by conducting controlled burns in the fire path near the communities of Williams Lake, 100 Mile House and 150 Mile House to prevent the fires from spreading. As a precaution, the Xatsull community had earlier taken a head count of the 85 people who had stayed to fight fires and provide logistical support and food, or had joined the effort from other communities. As with other fires in the B.C. Interior started late last week, the lightning strikes around the First Nation community of Xatsull before last weekend has immediately ignited the tinder-dry forest. They had been working hard to contain the fires, but now the danger is the high winds fanning already existing fires and pushing them through the dry forests and grasslands in the Cariboo. That danger had already caused other evacuation orders in the areas surrounding Williams Lake earlier on on Saturday, including Loon Lake and Big Creek, and evacuation alerts in Tatla Lake and the Village of Clinton. An alert was issued for an area southwest of Prince George as well. One fire had been ignited at the edge of a hay field, and Sellars and others tried to get water f from a tankk on Sll Sellar’s’ trucksk to theh fire but the hoses were 100 feet short. Still, they managed to keep fire from destroying any of the 60 homes, about 25 kilometres north of Williams Lake. In one instance, water from a kiddie pool was used to extinguish a fire on a lawn. When the fires initially started, almost immediately, the community of Xatsull was told they were on their own, but had slowly gathered resources to fight the fires, said Mack. Like other First Nations that have defied evacuation recommendations, Mack said they had little choice but to protect their community and save homes. Mack stressed it was the community directing and doing the firefighting, although they were co-ordinating their efforts with the B.C. Wildfire Service. “I am so proud of my community,” Mack had said Friday afternoon. On Saturday morning, along the highway near Xatsull, the area was already blanketed in smoke. In fact, heavy smoke hung in the air for more than 100 kilometres along the highway from Williams Lake and past Quesnel. There is also a heavy police presence in the area, with RCMP officers stationed at several road closures into communities with evacuation orders, including Xatsull.