Fire crews have travelled from near and far in B.C. to help protect homes in Logan Lake, after the town was evacuated yesterday by the Tremont Creek wildfire.
There are about 60 fire engines in the community, including two from Kamloops.
Mayor Robin Smith says other crews have come from as far as places like Elkford, Mackenzie and Burnaby to help put up sprinklers, and says there are about 175 firefighters in town altogether.
“And I do want to just congratulate the community in evacuating in a safe and orderly manner. We did manage to get everybody out fairly quickly, so that was encouraging for us.”
She says while people have had to leave their homes, the community is being looked after.
“People probably want to know that the sprinklers are established and they’re operational. RCMP is patrolling because they don’t want people to be coming back in to the community for anything, unless there are special circumstances that they’ve made arrangements with authorities for. Public Works is working day and night, to protect our critical water systems of course.”
Smith says it appears some residents in the community of about 2,000 residents didn’t have anywhere to go when they were told to evacuate yesterday. She says a small number of residents went to Chiliwack, more than two hours away.
“It looked like there were definitely some people who made the trek to Chilliwack. I think quite a few people have found other accommodations in different ways. I can’t imagine what some of those people out there are feeling right now. The ones who don’t have an RV, or a place to stay really.”
Operators of a 100-bed shelter at NorKam Secondary in Kamloops now say wildfire evacuees are able to stay there if needed on a short-term basis. The shelter was available last night, operator Dina Lambright says, but only one Logan Lake resident checked in.
As of late last night, the Tremont Creek fire was five kilometres from Logan Lake. Smith says the fire did not grow closer to town overnight and that winds were calm this morning.
Apart from Logan Lake, growth on the wildfire forced 10 properties to be evacuated within the Thompson-Nicola Regional District and IR 3 to be evacuated on the Lower Nicola Band, between Logan Lake and Mamette Lake. Another 280 properties within the TNRD have also been put on evacuation alert, including Cherry Creek, Paska Lake and Face Lake.
Highway 97D is closed between Logan Lake and the Coquihalla Highway, while Highway 97C is closed between Mamette Lake and Logan Lake. The 97C is open from Ashcroft to just west of Logan Lake.
Meanwhile, Highland Valley Copper is operating a skeleton crew with the mine on evacuation alert, and many employees now on evacuation order. There is no imminent risk to the mine’s operations.
