Seven evacuees from Williams Lake have been staying in Castlegar, waiting for the 12,987-hectare blaze northeast of their city to be contained so they can go home.
Pat Heigh, a homeowner in Williams Lake, evacuated on Saturday, July 15 with six members of the Boxeur family — George Boxeur, his wife, three kids and granddaughter — and Heigh’s 156-pound husky-wolf, Chudleigh. They spent the night in Kamloops before completing the trip to Castlegar where they are staying with Heigh’s brother.
Heigh says the City of Williams Lake and the Cariboo Regional District (CRD) made it easy for people to evacuate by keeping everyone informed.
“They gave us what I’d almost call pre-alert notice that ‘This could happen, we’re not alerting yet.’ They led up to it in stages. Did a great job,” he said.
The city was on alert for about a week before the evacuation finally came because the fire was threatening to block escape routes, and by then Heigh and the Boxeurs were ready.
“We had, had ample time to plan, so it was a matter of last minute loading, get Chudleigh’s ramp and everything together, and get him in,” said Heigh.
“We had all the essentials ready to go,” said Boxeur, who has known Heigh for years. “Important papers, motorcycles, quads… Whatever you didn’t want to leave behind.”
In preparing for the at-that-time-potential evacuation, Heigh packed insurance papers, pictures, dog food, water and enough clothes for a week or two. Both he and Boxeur took photos of their houses and what was inside for insurance purposes.
Asked about how to prepare for an evacuation, Heigh said, “Pay attention to the media.” He also recommends paying attention to evacuation information issued by your municipality or regional district so you know what to do once the time comes.
Heigh says that by the time he and the Boxeurs left, Williams Lake was a bit of a ghost town, but they stayed because they were afraid of looting.
“A lot of people stayed in the various blocks as long as possible because there was looting going on in the 100 Mile area and the Big Lake area,” said Heigh. “That’s the biggest fear, more than the fire.”
Now that the small group of evacuees are in Castlegar, the biggest issue is that they have to go to Kelowna each week to get money from the province for billeting and to get and use food vouchers — except that now the Castlegar Safeway has come on board to honour the evacuees’ vouchers.
“If somehow the local stores, if you’re available for evacuees, let the Red Cross or the city know that evacuees can shop at these stores with their vouchers,” said Heigh.
Heigh and the Boxeurs are getting about $10 per person per day for billeting and $22.50 per adult per day for food from the Province of B.C.
Both households also received the $600 in assistance issued through the Red Cross.
So far there’s no official word on when Williams Lake evacuees will be able to return home.
