Cache Creek Volunteer Fire Department captain Bill Elliott has called Cache Creek home for 46 years.
After graduating from high school in Ashcroft, he went to work at the Cache Creek Husky in 1978 and has lived in the community ever since.
“I worked there as a kid and then the owner offered me a share if I wanted to buy in and we ended up being business partners,” Elliiott said. “We also married sisters and became brothers-in-law.”
While he no longer has the Husky, and is down to owning Cariboo Clearwater only, he and his wife Christine owned several businesses in the community over the years.
Recently he received his 45-year pin for service with the fire department.
“Ironically when I was a kid working at the Husky, back in the day, they had what were called fire phones,” he recalled of his first introduction to firefighting in Cache Creek.
When there was a fire call, the phones which were at certain businesses and homes, would ring.
He said he remembers being scared of the phone while at Husky and not wanting to answer it because it was this “red emergency phone.”
One time, his brother-in-law and business partner Ben Roy, who was on the fire department offered to show him how it all worked and brought him to the fire hall.
“Then I was not scared of it and I knew what to do. A little bit later I was 19 and he convinced me to join the fire department.”
Today the fire department has room for 25 members and over the years as had as much as a waiting list.
Presently there is a crew of about 17 firefighters and room for more.
It’s the camaraderie and wanting to give back to the community in way that he is able to that keeps him dedicated to the department, he said.
“Having businesses in town I was always usually there. We had the Cariboo Jade Shop for 39 years which kept us right in town so we were handy for calls and what not, plus when you’ve got all those friends and if you need a hand for anything you can always round up some help.”
Laughing he said they tease him about his efforts of roping in others to help.
The fire department is funded by the village and looks after everything inside the village limits.
“We don’t do highway rescue, that is looked after by Ashcroft,” Elliott explained.
They do get called for lift assists by BC Emergency Health Services and calls such as those.
Presently the captain and treasurer, he has held every position over the years, even chief.
Cache Creek is his hometown, he said.
“We are only 45 minutes from Kamloops, which isn’t too bad. Our daughter and son live there and our two grand boys, five and seven.”
Aside from being a business owner and member of the fire department, he enjoys many hobbies.
He’s been riding motorcycles since he was 10-years-old, loves snowmobiling and has a collection of 1955 to 1956 Chevrolets that he works on and uses.
That love of vintage cars extends to being the chair and one of the founders of Graffiti Days, a popular event in the community, that used to be called Cariboo Sam Days.
“We just had our second time trying it in September and it worked well,” he said.
Graffiti Days is an all-weekend event with drag races at the airport, a car cruise, show and shine, burnout contest, a dance, beer gardens, poker run and a market downtown.
The town has had its share of natural disasters in recent years with wildfire and flooding, which Elliott said involved the fire department.
“We are front and centre with a lot of that. We lost our fire chief Clayton a few years ago. He was my very good friend,” he recalled, noting it is still a heartbreaking loss.
While he is the longest serving active member of the fire department presently, he said his brother-in-law Ben who passed away nine years ago, had 48 years of service.
