'Happiness, it's all fine:' B.C. residents rejoice after wildfire close call

A drive north of Cache Creek along Highway 97, shows just how close wildfire came to destroying dozens of properties that line the roadway up to Clinton B.C.

For the past two weeks, multiple fires have burned in this area, some right down to the highway and across it.

Late Thursday, officials opened this portion of Highway 97 back up, much to the delight and trepidation of residents like Sandra Rowlands who live along the road.

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She hurriedly packed a few things on Friday, July 7, as she watched the hills glowing red around her and left for the Shuswap.

"A lot was just fingers crossed hoping everything was going to be here when we got home," she said Friday after getting back home for the first time.

The flames came within 800 metres of her home but did not cross Highway 97 where she's lived for decades and raised two children.

'Like heaven'

"Like heaven, just such a relief, such a relief," she said about returning home and finding everything in its place.

It was a much closer call for Joy and Terry Klein,.The fire burned to within metres of their backyard, at their property on the east side of Highway 97.

"Great big huge columns of smoke," is how Terry Klein described the last thing he and his wife Joy saw before they also scrambled to leave in a RV, where they lived for the past two weeks while parked in Clinton.

Miraculously, they returned to see the burn line had stopped just short of their yard.

"Happiness, it's all fine," said Joy Klein. "It's really not that bad."

Next door, however, their neighbour's garage burned in the fire, which appears to be the only casualty of a blaze that burned so close to so many properties in the area.

Klein admits that it was a tough two weeks, not knowing what they would be returning home to, a sentiment shared by Jason Todd.

He lives up the road from the Kleins with his two daughters.

"There's nothing between the fire and the house except fuel for the fire," he said Friday. "So, it was pretty stressful."

He camped outside of Kamloops with other family after fleeing his home.

A neighbour stayed behind to try and look after people's places, but left when the hills above Todd's and other's places erupted in flames.

"When the fire came over the hill, he said: 'That's it. I'm leaving,'" recalled Todd who was told by the neighbour that he didn't believe Todd's house, which he moved into just months ago, would survive.

Now, he's immensely relieved the flames stopped just short of his place and he can resume his life at home.

"I've got a lot of work to do, a lot of cleaning up but very happy to be home," he said.

The B.C. Wildfire Service says there are still 22 major fires in the province, 15 of which are threatening properties. More than 40,000 people are still out of their homes as a result.

"Be prepared with evacuation plans," said Robert Turner with Emergency Management B.C. on Friday to residents who may still be threatened or have returned home.

Joy Klein says she and her husband's emergency kit remains packed. She says she realizes they may be forced out again this summer or in future ones.

"You can't guard against that. I mean that's a wildfire," she said taking another sobering look at the scorched earth metres from her backyard pool.

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