The mayor of 100 Mile House says people in his community are relieved to no longer be on evacuation alert.
That alert was lifted on Saturday, after being in place since July 14 because of the Flat Lake wildfire. At one point, there were more than 1,000 properties evacuated from that fire, but all of those orders have now been lifted. Several hundred homes remain on evacuation alert but that’s down from more than 3,000 earlier this summer.
Mayor Mitch Campsall says there was a change in weather over the weekend, which the BC Wildfire Service says has helped crewsget ahead of many parts of the Flat Lake fire.
Campsall says, though, that we’re still in the heart of wildfire season, and there’s not a feeling that the community is out of the woods yet.
He says there’s a running joke locally about the weather.
“They always say if you don’t like the weather, wait 50 minutes and it’ll change. Literally that’s what happens. It’ll be going one way for about 20 minutes to a half hour, then the wind will change and go the other way. And then bang, we’re getting rain. Then we’re getting heat.”
Campsall also is reminding people to get information from reliable sources on evacuation orders or alerts, namely the Cariboo Regional District, the District of 100 Mile House and local media outlets that quote those sources. That’s after misinformation spread on July 14, the day the alert was put in place, which had many confused as to whether there was an evacuation order.
“Our phones never stopped ringing. And the fact is I think, in total, according to the wrong media – which is Facebook and whoever else is putting it out – we were evacuated eight times in the last month. Which never did happen. All we did was an evacuation alert, and so in other words, just to be prepared.”
While 100 Mile was not directly impacted by the Flat Lake fire, there were spinoff impacts locally, with heavy local smoke, occasional closures on Highway 97 north of 70 Mile House and a directive from fire officials in the province to not travel to places on evacuation order or alert.
“Tourism wasn’t there because of the fears and concerns, and rightfully so,” Campsall says. “But I think we will get back to a normal. It’s going to take a while – it’s not something that gets done overnight. But 100 Mile is resilient, and we’ll move on and we will beat this.”
