Catherine Van Tine Marcinek managed to cope amid the wildfires last summer but not without high amounts of stress and confusion over what she said was misinformation spread by the authorities.
The Ootsa Lake resident and manager of Pondosy Bay Wilderness Resort told Lakes District News that in August, Conservation Officer Jeff Palm and a woman RCMP officer came to her door and implied she should leave the area.
The Verdun fire was raging several kilometres from her home on Ootsa Lake.
“We were told that the fire was heading straight for us and that they had just drove through it within a couple of miles of our house and that it could be there within hours,” she wrote in an email. “FALSE!! (And I knew it).”
The Verdun fire was actually heading northeast away from her area, she said.
She was more bewildered when Palm asked for her dental records.
“When asked why he needed our dental records he told us so they could identify our charred bodies after the fire went through…that by the way…don’t forget!!…would take us within the next few hours!! Misinformation!”
The stories she heard of threats of arrest if people didn’t evacuate created a lot of anxiety for her and others.
“The stress and fear this created over here was exactly as they intended. It did not drive us out though,” she said.
“It has caused health issues, a couple spats between friends and neighbors…but most of all, a drive to change the rule books so this doesn’t happen in the next community who experience(s) this.”
Van Tine Marcinek was among several local people who were asked for their dental records during the wildfires.
Risa Johansen, owner of Takysie Lake Resort, defied evacuation orders and stayed behind to protect her property from the flames.
RCMP officers asked her several times for her dental records, she said.
The resort owner detailed an instance when seven RCMP officers came to her resort and tried to convince her to evacuate.
“One of them whipped out a written memo…and then he stopped and said, ‘Now for the gruesome part. I now request that you give me your dental information so we have the ability to identify your remains.’ I just walked away,” she said.
In an emailed statement to Lakes District News, RCMP Corporal Madonna Saunderson, North District Advisory NCO for Media Relations, confirmed that such information was requested from residents who chose to stay on their properties during the evacuation.
“As with previous incidents where an evacuation was necessary for the safety of the public, our officers have asked for information such as next of kin as well as the name and contact number of their dentist. This information would be necessary in the event we needed to obtain dental records for identification purposes,” she wrote.
Miscommunication also put Aaron Gerow from the Cheslatta First Nation, in a precarious spot last summer.
He and his group of loggers were called up to help fight the blazes between the Verdun and Cheslatta Lake Fires.
Gerow explained that one day in late August his crew were driving loaders towards Cheslatta Lake and using the road as a fire guard while the main fire was roaring up a hill a few kilometres away.
At one point Gerow stopped, got out of his vehicle and spoke with Dana Hicks, a wildfire prevention specialist with the BC Wildfire Service.
According to Gerow, Hicks said he was looking for a spot to light a jackpot – a controlled burn that would pull the main fire into the jackpot and create a barrier between Gerow’s crew and the lake.
He got back into his loader and continued towards the lake.
But somehow, the jackpot was lit behind him, trapping him between the lake and the new fire.
“My boss said [over the radio] ‘turn around now, it looks bad and it’s going to get way worse’. I had some choice words and said, ‘I have to walk through that?’ I was just mad,” Gerow said.
He turned around and drove through the fire, whose flames were 20-feet high, with strong winds throwing sparks dozens of metres away and starting new fires.
“[It] didn’t damage the vehicle. It was a brand, spanking new loader. Even with all the sparks coming off of that there were no oily bits that would catch,” he said.
Once he was clear of the jackpot he got out and “there were a lot of swear words with the guys lighting the fires.”
Gerow pointed out that he doesn’t blame any single person for the incident, and added that the BC Wildfire Service workers might’ve tried to light the jackpot in the right place.
“They should’ve lit the jackpot when nobody was there. It kind of boxed me in,” he said.
“We had to salvage what [the BC Wildfire Service] kept screwing up.”
Efforts to contact Hicks for this article were not successful.
