Across the South Cariboo, people, in evacuation alert areas or not, are rallying to help each other.
The Fircrest RV Resort in Lac la Hache is hosting evacuees from other areas — despite being in an evacuation alert zone themselves.
“As much as we feel like we’re stuck in the middle of it, we do feel fairly safe,” says Nancy Ragan, a site manager at the resort.
“We’ve just gathered as a community. We get together and listen to the updates and just try to get our minds off of it. We had a community dinner here last night and we’re talking about maybe going around the lake in our boats today to just think of something else,” she says.
“Considering the situation, everybody’s in pretty good spirits.”
The RV Resort has been hosting people since the evacuations started due to the Gustafsen Fire on Thursday, July 6.
Right now she says that the smoke is lingering today, but looks like it wants to clear.
“We can see mostly the lake, but across the way it is mostly lingering and hovering. Some days it’s thicker than others. I think it comes and goes with the wind.”
When the road south reopened briefly on Saturday, many of the campers Ragan had headed out, but she says that at the moment they’re hosting about 9 or 10 people, some of whom are stuck due to the road situation.
“We have opened our doors as a bit of an evacuee station,” she says. “We have a stocked fridge and freezer, we have generators, we’re quite prepared and we made sure that once the roads reopened on Saturday that we had plenty of propane and gas and water.”
Other resorts and residents across the South Cariboo have also offered their homes and properties to evacuees.
Ragan has been keeping her eyes and ears glued to official information sources.
“It sounds like everybody is doing the best that they can. The crews working, all the volunteers — kudos to them.”
While she does say that due to the closures, they haven’t received many evacuees, she says anyone is welcome.
“I know we are in the middle of it and we could be evacuated just as quick as anybody else, but we do have facilities we can offer to anyone that needs them, whether they have a trailer, an RV or need a shower,” she says. “I know it’s kind of hard to get to us with the road closures, but we’re here to help.”