When Shawn and Rob Altmannshofer headed home, they weren’t sure what they would find.
“You hear of all kinds of looting so you expect the worst,” says Shawn.
“Looters is what we were worried about, not the fire so much,” says Rob.
The two, along with Carl Altmannshofer who evacuated out of Williams Lake, were camped at a friend’s property in Horse Lake.
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They evacuated in two trips, taking their “most prized possessions and everything we couldn’t replace.”
Shawn started packing up days ago, so when they got a phone call from their son in Fort St. John saying he had seen over social media they could go home, they left within half an hour.
“It was a relief, big time, to come here and see that the doors are all in one piece,” says Rob.
The experience, Rob says, was for the most part just like camping.
“It was stressful in that we didn’t know what was going on or anything. There wasn’t a whole lot of information, but as far as our stay over there? It was just camping for us. It wasn’t too bad.”
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Their other concern was the fridge.
“We had a fish that we left in the fridge who we thought might be swimming down the stairs by now,” says Rob.
Everything, at least on first glance, appears to be fine in the Altmannshofer household, but they say they probably wouldn’t leave again unless the fire was literally on their doorstep.
“I would say what we were doing at Horse Lake we could have done here. We didn’t have power, yeah we used the running water because it was there, we don’t need it,” says Shawn.
“It would be tough to kick me out again,” adds Rob.
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