There is some good news for residents in the Boston Bar area who were forced from their homes due to the Brunswick Complex wildfires.
On Wednesday, the Fraser Valley Regional District announced that the following areas in Electoral Area A will be on evacuation alert.
- North Bend and Canyon Alpine
- Fishblue Lake Area
- Nahatlatch and North Boothroyd Area
- Boston Bar
- Scuzzy Creek south of Boston Bar
Residents can return home, but must remember they are still on evacuation alert, the regional district said.
The Brunswick Creek wildfire is still considered out of control. However, BC Wildfire advises the risk has sufficiently subsided and residents may return home if they choose to.
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Highway 1 remains closed from before (northbound) the Yale Tunnel to Jackass Summit (25 km south of Lytton).
Residents can only access their properties through a northern route.
The Emergency Support Services provided by the province will remain in effect until the morning of Aug. 8 so residents have some time to prepare for re-entry.
Those returning home must follow the re-entry guide for residents when it comes to cleaning and disposing of refrigerators.
Residents are also reminded that the area is on a boil water advisory for properties receiving Fraser Valley Regional District water. Those on private wells are reminded that the wells require testing before consuming the water.
The Red Cross will provide cleaning kits for each household, according to the regional district, and those will be available in Boston Bar.
First Nations communities should check with their local government for direction as this downgrade alert from the regional district does not apply to them.
The only reason they have downgraded the order to an alert is because the Province isn’t interested in supporting the people who were evacuated from Boston Bar and the surrounding area through ESS. The evacuation order passed 30 days which meant anyone with insurance coverage were then eligible for ESS (others were eligible from day one) and all the Province saw was dollar signs. They don’t care about the safety or wellbeing of the evacuees. They don’t care that they are sending hundreds of people into an area with an out of control fire (as of today BC Wildfire has it labelled as such) with one road in and one road out (very reminiscent of Fort Mac). They don’t care that there is a boil water advisory in an area with rolling black outs due to weakened infrastructure because of the multiple fires of note. They don’t care that there was a power outage in that area for nearly a week and every home has been sitting with a fridge and freezer full of rotten food. They don’t care that the residents will not have reasonable access to Hope or the rest of the Lower Mainland because the southern portion of Highway 1 is currently closed and that everyone will have to make a five hour round trip to Kamloops just to get fresh water and groceries when it would otherwise be 40 minutes to Hope. They don’t care that the closest hospital is now 2.5 hours away due to the Highway closure. They don’t care that many residents who work in Hope or Chilliwack will now have to travel nearly 1000 Kms round trip every day. I could keep going but the fact is that the FVRD and the Province of BC simply do not care. I have spoken with the FVRD about these concerns and was met with a word salad consisting of non answers and a flippant attitude heavily peppered with condescension and deflection… I was quickly inserted into their famous bureaucratic pin ball machine. It never ceases to surprise me how high the taxes are on quite literally everything in this province. It would shock some how high the property taxes are in the Fraser Canyon and how woefully neglected that area is by the FVRD and the MoTT despite this… let’s touch on the complete lack of forest management for another day… so despite collecting an absolute bounty in taxes, when it comes to a devastating wild fire that has created more issues than just a scorched earth, the FVRD and the Province couldn’t care less about creating a “return to home” plan that makes sense. They wouldn’t fathom delaying that plan for an another week while supporting all the residents who faithfully pay their tax bill… no, all they care about is clawing back a few bucks so they can line their already bulging pockets.