Mayor of 100 Mile House reflects on BC’s worst wildfire season
Posted December 23, 2017 12:05 pm.
Last Updated December 23, 2017 12:08 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
100 Mile House (NEWS 1130) – While all the damage caused is still being tallied up, 100 Mile House Mayor Mitch Campsall considers the province’s worst wildfire season on record a challenge the people of the Cariboo overcame with courage and hope.
“Makes a man like myself very proud to be part of this community.”
He says he’s grateful no lives were lost in July when flames strong enough to destroy the entire district forced him to order everyone out.
“It was almost devastating. You’re sending your people away and really believing and not knowing if they were going to come back to the same community –if there was even going to be a community to come back to. That was hard. Day after day for about five to ten days, you didn’t know whether it was going to come into town or not. The firefighters, provincial forestry people and also, volunteer firefighters that we have in our communities just did an outstanding and incredible job.”
Campsall points out the destruction could have been so much worse, five months after he had to make that difficult choice.
“You don’t have to look very far around the world. Just looking down south where they had fires in California. You look down there and you go, ‘wow.’ There’s loss of life and then, there’s way more loss of property. Not that I can undermine the people in our community that lost their property. I mean, that’s devastating.”
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He adds the focus now is on recovery with support from the provincial government.
“They’ve let us do what we need to do in our own communities. I mean, we got accused of them downloading it onto to us, but we asked to be able to do the work. Who knows our community better than we do? I mean, they’re helping us with everything, but they’ve been absolutely great. I have got no complaints whatsoever.”
Campsall says, over the next three years, up to $4 million will have to be spent making the south Cariboo region more fire-proof.
“A guy could write ten books on some of the stuff that went on. The south Cariboo is probably, I would put them at the top of any list –incredible people, that’s for sure.”
Campsall, who has received lots of praise for his leadership since July, insists it’s misguided.
“It’s actually embarrassing when people come and say, thank me for the work that was done when you know the great part of the work was done by volunteers and some of our staff.”
He says he’s also proud of how his community came together to help people who lost their homes.
