North Shuswap resident Kyle Boppre offers a simple explanation when asked why he defied an evacuation order issued as a wildfire bore down on his neighbourhood. 'It's just, I guess, in my blood to fight,' he said. 'We were able to save our home.
North Shuswap resident Kyle Boppre offers a simple explanation when asked why he defied an evacuation order issued as a wildfire bore down on his neighbourhood.Boppre and others in the small communities that dot the Shuswap region's waterfront felt like they were on their own, with no choice but to take the firefight into their own hands.
Most evacuation orders have been obeyed, but holdouts like Boppre and others stayed to fight the fires and believe the official response has been inadequate, incompetent, or non-existent.Trent Tucker, a professor at Thompson Rivers University, lost his home to the fires near Little Shuswap Lake. "They got lucky it wasn't like the case in West Kelowna where people stayed back and then they had to get rescued behind fire lines by firefighters."He said a friend who tried to return to the area to join the fire fight encountered a police roadblock and when he tried to turn around he was chased down, his truck confiscated, and he was not allowed to return to his property in an evacuation zone.
Boppre, who runs a marine maintenance and scuba diving business, said members of the community have local knowledge of the geography, but officials from outside don't seem to value it."We can't wait around for that help that's supposed to be here and watch our homes burn," he said."If I did evacuate when they wanted me to, definitely would have lost my entire livelihood.
At a Columbia Shuswap Regional District briefing in Salmon Arm, board chairman Kevin Flynn said"it's inexcusable" that people are staying behind in the evacuation zones and tampering with equipment.
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