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Williams Lake woman says home looted of guns, TV, frozen food as wildfires rage all around

Click to play video: 'Evacuees now concerned about looting'
Evacuees now concerned about looting
Sun, Jul 9: It’s not only the loss to a home that wildfire evacuees are having to worry about. There’s another concern that’s being raised. Nadia Stewart has more on that – Jul 9, 2017

Wildfires raging all around. A dog with diabetes. A husband with breathing issues, and a leg infection so dire he could lose the limb.

On top of all of that, Williams Lake resident Tracy Roy said she went home on Saturday to find the place ransacked, with frozen food, a TV and her husband’s shotguns missing from the residence.

“We’re going through enough,” Roy told Global News.

Coverage of B.C. wildfires on Globalnews.ca:

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Roy said she found the gate to her home, located near the Williams Lake airport in the Cariboo region, wide open into her yard when she went home after initially leaving due to the fires.

She saw a drawer on the ground and recognized it as belonging to Thomas, her husband. She wondered if he had been in the shed.

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Then she went up the stairs to her home and found her door wide open and Thomas’ walker in the doorway.

The aftermath of a break-in at the home of Williams Lake resident Tracy Roy. Courtesy of Tracy Roy

Inside, she found the freezer empty, with all the chicken, fish and hamburgers stolen.

But that wasn’t as alarming as when she found a gun cabinet ransacked, her husband’s 12-gauge pump-action shotgun and two .22 single-shot guns missing.

An ammo box was busted open, but the bullets for the .22s had been dropped. Ammo for the 12-gauge was nowhere to be seen.

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The gun cabinet at Williams Lake resident Tracy Roy’s home. Courtesy of Tracy Roy

Roy told the RCMP that she’s concerned about the shotgun, in part, because it’s registered to her husband.

“Someone out there’s got a shotgun and bullets, what’s next?” she said.

“We just thought, are they going to come back and finish the job because they didn’t get everything the first time?”

READ MORE: B.C.’s on fire from north to south — and it’s still not enough to set a record

As Roy told it, hers wasn’t the only home to be ransacked; her neighbour’s home was robbed too, she said.

Roy admitted she didn’t have any insurance for the stolen items either.

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Though she felt “violated” by the robbery, Roy said she hopes that no one finds out who ransacked her home.

“There’s a thing out here called Cariboo justice.”

Roy said she wouldn’t be the one to mete it out — but with several places that have been broken into, according to her, she said “eventually they’re going to find out who it is and it might not be good for them.”

 

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