For Sue Peters, owner of the Husky gas station in Cache Creek, what started off as an ordinary day on July 7 took an extraordinary turn, as a wildfire swept toward the town and residents of Cache Creek were ordered to evacuate.
Peters and her daughter Alana, a member of the Cache Creek Volunteer Fire Department, evacuated their animals to Thompson River Estates on July 7; then Peters brought Alana back to the fire hall in Cache Creek.
“I was allowed to come back in [to town] because I was fire department support,” says Peters. “I provided food and drinks to the crew.”
When the RCMP set up a command centre at the fire hall on July 8, someone asked “Where do we get fuel?” recalls Peters, who was able to provide gas. However, her main task was providing food for the local firefighters and the BC Wildfire crews who began appearing en masse. “The Ashcroft Legion stepped up hugely; they would call and say ‘What do you need today?’”
Soon Peters and a team of four other ladies—Genine Fitzgerald, Christine Elliott, Shelby Doerkson, and Donna Brezina (“They ran the kitchen after the first four days; they did an amazing job and made amazing meals,” says Peters)—were busy keeping volunteers and crews fed. “For the first while we used food that was perishable,” she says, with much of it coming from the Husky restaurant, which was closed. “Then we realized that a lot of people thought we were funded. Cache Creek chief administrative officer Keir Gervais got hold of the fire commissioner’s office, got funding, drove to Kamloops, and bought $1,100-worth of food.”
She says they also received four skids of donations from Save-On-Foods, but soon got the point where they did not have enough refrigeration (the kitchen at the fire hall only has a domestic-sized fridge). “So Dan Berwin got hold of a refrigeration trailer for use at the fire hall, which was donated by Trailer Wizards for as long as we need it.
“The support of the fire department and the B.C. fire commissioner’s office and the public has been overwhelming. It brings me to tears. The BC Wildfire crews would come in exhausted, covered in soot, and the first thing they’d ask me is ‘How are you?’ They just get up the next morning and do it all again without complaint. They’re the true heroes in this.
“Our fire departments worked 24 hours a day. The Ashcroft Fire Department was a visible presence in Cache Creek after they put their own fires out.”
Peters pauses for a moment. “Someone said to me ‘Cache Creek has had so many things go bad in the last few years.’ And I said ‘The community always comes together; and we’re fricking awesome.’”