BC Gov News

"When we first deployed we arrived in the night time, you couldn’t see anything, you could see smoke and we went through the first set of roadblocks at Ashcroft, it seemed odd to be stopped by the RCMP on the highway. We went into Cache Creek, even in the dark you could see there was quite a bit of devastation there already. We spent a few hours sleeping and then we moved on to 150 Mile, we spent the rest of our 10 days there. There were no sleeping arrangements for us and one of the businesses that was quite close to the fire hall was a RV dealership and within the first few hours he was dragging RV’s of different vintages, some new and some used, and was like here you go, get as many people a place to stay, but that is what we slept in, RV’s mostly. Our food and any supplies we needed was just supplied by the local people who somehow stayed inside the evacuation area, so they were connected to the fire hall or just volunteered to help, but they were all out of their homes and were staying at the fire hall as well. One thing that will stick with me was the night they evacuated Williams Lake, for me it just felt like an apocalypse, everyone was leaving, it was snowing ash, smoky, and you're like, what’s going to happen here tomorrow? People were just, I wouldn’t say they were panicked but they were genuinely pretty freaked. Another thing that would stick with me was how generous everyone was, everyone wanted you to be there." (Gord, Metchosin Fire Department) #BCWildfire