Williams Lake's fire chief Evan Dean continues to be grateful for all the help the city received when the river valley fire erupted Sunday, July 21.
"My kudos to BC Wildfire, 150 Mile, Wildwood, Central Cariboo Search and Rescue and the Williams Lake RCMP for all of their help during that event," Dean said Monday, July 29. "Without them we would have been in a lot more trouble."
A BC Wildfire unit crew was in the valley Monday, July 29, concentrating efforts on the steep slopes in the river valley to extinguish any hot spots. BC Hydro was also on site Monday beginning replacing the eight power poles burned in the fire.
"We will be getting a dangerous tree assessor in as well to work in this area," he said.
Moving forward, Dean said the reporting on the fire will need to be completed and there will be a review of the response.
"I think it went quite well, but we will see if there is an opportunity to do things better that we can take from this."
Dean said a number of firefighters contacted him over the weekend as they processed the fire, watched what was happening in Jasper, Alta. and how things could have gone in Williams Lake.
"It was only a couple feet away from being in another building and another building and another building," Dean said.
It was a city worker who initially investigated when the sewer lagoon power was tripped.
When the worker saw the fire starting from the tree top falling on the hydro line in the river valley, he reported it to the city's director of municipal services Rob Warnock.
"Rob came down and saw it was bigger than anything we could handle because he used to be the deputy fire chief and called in BC Wildfire," Dean said. "He told them we were going to need help right away and air support."
Public access to the river valley is expected to be cut off for the next year due to the damages caused by the wildfire, including the Lower Max bike trail.
