The Cariboo Regional District’s Emergency Operations Centre issued evacuation orders for 1,200 homes in the 105 Mile, and 108 Mile Ranch areas (as of 1 p.m.) today, leaving resident scrambling to gather essentials and then stuck in traffic trying to follow the routes they were instructed to take.
A 108 Mile Ranch resident Val Nickless was on her way to the mustering centre in Williams Lake with the husband, Chris Nickless, when she provided the 100 Mile Free Press with an update of their own evacuation experience, so far, at about 1 p.m. today (July 7).
“We are just leaving 108 now, we are driving out to the Heritage Site, because it’s all bottle-necked as we were trying to come out the south entrance.”
Val began preparing a list of what she and Chris might need if they received an order to evacuate last night, before it was even issued, as soon as she realized there might be an evacuation order coming, she explained.
“I went to work this morning and one of the [staff] mentioned, to be sure to grab your marriage licenses, so I hadn’t thought of that and was able to add that to my list.
“So we have got our car full, and our two cats – and they’re not very happy, because they’re house cats and they’ve never really had a ride in a vehicle. So the are a little traumatized.”
Asked how all this is going for her, Val says it seems “surreal” as she’d thought the fire had moved on and she wasn’t going to have to act on an evacuation order, despite Vals’ cautious preparations.
“We’d thought we were out of the woods.”
This morning it seemed the fire was heading north past her area in 108 Mile Ranch neighbourhood, so it was a bit of a shock, regardless, to awake to a dark, dark colour in the smoke spreading over about 750 hectares at that time.
“Now … it’s got a kind of a hue to it now, the smoke is an ‘orangy’ brown.
By the early afternoon when she and Chris hit the road, the fire had grown to at least 1,200 ha, according to the latest official reports from the CFC and as posted as often as possible on the 100 Mile Free Press Facebook page.
Chris was mentioning they have flaggers in place at the Highway 97 intersections with these community exits to assist evacuating residents to get onto their escape routes, she said.
Val added it did look at the time that it looked like there was a flagger doing something with traffic a little further along their route north to the Ramada Inn in William Lake.
“I imagine if anything happens it will be in the next day or two, so we’ll see what happens, I guess.
“But, it definitely gets a little serious when you see the order and then you realize, okay, you really do have to go. You are trying to decide what to take and what to leave, and so … we definitely feel like we got a lot of important stuff that we wanted to take.”
More information on Gustafson North FSR evacuation order, which communities must evacuate to which places, and advice on how to do so is online at http://www.cariboord.ca/services/emergency-and-protective-services/emergency-operations-centre-eoc. There are four separate orders, under Fire, so if you are unsure, be sure to check all the maps and addresses affected.
