The all-clear has been given to the Highway 24 corridor area resulting in no evacuation alerts or orders remaining within the Cariboo Regional District (CRD).
“I think everyone is relieved and pleased to see that the fires have reached the point where we can take everybody off of alert and let everyone stay home,” says chair Al Richmond.
“We just hope that there’s no recurrence and mother nature continues to cooperate with the firefighters who are still out there.”
Richmond says it was July 7th when it certainly appeared the District was surrounded by fire, and alerts and orders this year had affected 35,000 people.
“I think it was a bit of disbelief about the situation we were facing and of course over the next 70 plus days, we continued to face situations that we hadn’t anticipated. Given it’s the worst fire season the province has stood in over 60 years, it’s certainly the worst situation that we’ve experienced in the Cariboo-Chilcotin and god willing we won’t experience this again.”
The CRD Emergency Operations Centre has closed its operations and public phone lines effective as of Noon on Wednesday.
The CRD, according to Richmond, is now in recovery mode looking for options to recover the damage that has been done to the economy which includes but is not limited to the agriculture, tourism, and forestry sectors.
– with files from Rebecca Kelli, My Cariboo Now
Evacuation alert lifted to all clear for the Highway 24 Corridor Area. Map: https://t.co/UaGJ9x18xY News Release: https://t.co/KoesSVHDug pic.twitter.com/IdWH6X13IT
— CRD (@CaribooRD) September 20, 2017