Via The Globe and Mail: B.C. wildfires displace nearly 40,000 as Williams Lake becomes largest town to evacuate. Excerpt and then a comment:
Aggressive wildfires have forced nearly 40,000 British Columbians from their homes early into the wildfire season, with strong wind gusts pushing flames across the Fraser River and threatening to choke off major highways.
The entire city of Williams Lake – which is located about six hours northeast of Vancouver and has a population of just over 10,000 – was ordered evacuated on Saturday evening. A little more than half those residents had left voluntarily during an evacuation alert, but the remaining thousands streamed south to Kamloops overnight, a drive that normally takes about three hours taking upward of eight or nine for some.
On Sunday, hundreds of people at a time wrapped around Kamloops’s Sandman Centre, a multipurpose arena, as a haze of smoke hung in the air. Outside, volunteers handed out coffee, pastries, food vouchers and pet supplies; inside, hundreds of cots lay row upon row, available to evacuees on a first-come, first-serve basis.
It is one of 11 reception centres opened so far across British Columbia.
Lucy Lorenzetto, who fled her home in Williams Lake overnight, stood outside clutching a blue blanket, a plastic bag full of toiletries and a paper cup full of coffee. It took Ms. Lorenzetto and her friends 8 1/2 hours to reach Kamloops.
“It took an hour just to get out of town, there was that much traffic,” she said. “It was just chaos. We thought we were never going to get out of there.”
Aaron Baker sat outside the arena with a ticket stub corresponding with the cot he would be able to sleep in that night. It took him almost 12 hours to reach Kamloops from Williams Lake – “bumper to bumper the whole way,” he said.
He fled Fort McMurray during last year’s wildfires there, too.
“I’m not too worried,” Mr. Baker said. “I’ll just keep on keepin’ on.”
Nearby, volunteers assembled a large display of pet supplies, free for the taking: pet food, carriers, dishes. “Take as much as you need,” read a hand-written sign.
The evacuation order for Williams Lake and surrounding areas was issued around 6 p.m. on Saturday due to high winds that threatened to cut exit routes out of town. Fire officials had expected significant wind in the Cariboo region over the weekend, bringing gusts of up to 70 kilometres an hour in some areas.
Todd Stone, minister responsible for Emergency Management B.C., estimated on Sunday that between 36,000 and 37,000 people had been impacted by evacuation orders so far this wildfire season.
Robert Turner, assistant deputy manager for the provincial agency, noted that while this is not unprecedented – B.C.’s 2003 wildfire season displaced around 50,000 people – this year’s fires span a larger geographic area. As well, it’s still early in the wildfire season.
“The possible duration of this is different,” Mr. Turner said. “We have not yet reached those numbers but it is in many ways a much more complicated response because of the geographic scope.”
Fire officials are expecting to be in “response mode” for another 60 days, he added.
A new provincial government will be sworn in on Tuesday, and it will have a lot to deal with—starting with these fires.
