News and event information for Williams Lake, BC - as it happens.

By LeRae Haynes

With fire danger significantly less than it was a week ago, and with evacuated residents back at home, ranchers are busy rounding up cattle that were moved around during the fires 

One local resident who was evacuated twice during the fires, said that cattle are scattered all over the range and will have to be moved so that the fall range grazing will be available.

(Photos by Linda-Lou Howarth: Roma Richburg with Interior Roads, stayed at the Meldrum Creek Road turn-off for days, according to local residents, marking down license plate numbers of people coming and going. She is described as ‘always smiling, professional and patient—a shining star during our fiery season.’)

Meldrum Creek resident Linda-Lou Howarth explained that the ranchers’ main concern is to not have the range overgrazed before fall turn-out occurs, something all cattle owners will have to deal with a lot sooner than expected. She added that, fortunately, most ranchers got their hay put up during the fires. “With the fire and the recent rain, the grass will sprout quickly,” she said.

She said that one local rancher got a couple of rides in a helicopter to see where her cows were, and then sent out a crew on horseback to collect them.

(Photo: Jaimie Wright from Vancouver and Meldrum Creek resident Evan Howarth arrive back after a long day of tracking down cows for Neil and Karrie MacDonald, who wanted the cattle rounded up and put back where they belong now that the fire danger is dramatically reduced.)  

Linda-Lou and her husband live on a cousin’s ranch in Meldrum Creek, and said that they were the first to be evacuated and the last to come home. “When we got back everything looked exactly the same,” she explained. “It was when you drove on Meldrum Creek Road and toward the Rudy Johnson Bridge that you could see that there had been both a fire and a mudslide.”

(Photo: This sign was spotted approximately 2km along the West Fraser Road, where a mudslide occurred after the area caught fire.)

After being on evacuation order for 13 days and finally returning home, Linda-Lou experienced true hands-on humanity from two fire-fighter medics from Revelstoke and Nelson. On her drive home she got a flat tire and the two young men changed it for her, making her return home easier. 

(Photo: Two fire-fighter/medics on duty went above and beyond to change a returning evacuee’s tire.)

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