British Columbia's summer wildfires have caused nearly 40,000 residents to evacuate their homes to date. Chris Berkey and his wife Jackie are from Cache Creek, a small town just north-west of Kamloops in B.C.'s interior who were forced to evacuate when wildfires came too close to their town two weeks ago. After returning home to find their house spared from the fire, Chris recounts the couple's experience to Checkup host Duncan McCue.

Listen to their conversation:

Duncan McCue: I'm so glad that you and your wife have been able to get back home. How does it feel to be at home again?

Chris Berkey: Really nice. That's about all I can say. You know going away from your home on such short notice and not knowing what you're leaving or what you're coming back to is pretty daunting.

DM: Tell me about that day you evacuated. What was it like?

CB: That day really started pretty normal: I help out at a local restaurant, so I was down there. I came home about noon and started working on the computer when my wife phoned and said 'Have you looked outside?' I was aware there was something going on because light patterns were changing. So I went outside, stepped out the door and looking directly south there is this monster cloud way up in the sky.

My wife asked me if I'd check out what was going on, so I headed for higher ground by the airport, which is no longer there, and I could see the fire coming towards us, and up Elephant Hill. I looked down the hill and saw roadblocks going up so I figured I'd go home. I went to my truck and camper turned on the radio and watched that cloud come towards us. From my house I can see another mountain that's directly in town and the flames were in the trees there and the RCMP came through the area.

I wasn't told to get out. I had received a call from my wife saying she couldn't come back to town. So I said, 'OK, what do you need?' I loaded the camper and said, 'I'll meet you out on the highway,' and I headed out of town about 5pm.

DM: So you and your wife were separated at that point. How did you connect?

CB: Yes, my wife works in Ashcroft, B.C. at a credit union. She had tried to come home when they lost power, but because of where the fire was, they wouldn't allow her to drive home. So she figured she'd drive all the way around through Logan Lake and Sakinaw Lake and back to Cache Creek. She got as far as Back Valley Road, which is to the east of Cache Creek on the way to Kamloops, and officials stopped her there and said, "You can't go back to town." I wasn't sticking around without her, so I put everything in the camper and off I went. I picked her up and we started an adventure, which is a code word for 'we really don't know what's going to happen, but here we come.'

DM: You said you were concerned about the way you found out about the fire and that you weren't getting the kind of information that you'd hoped?

CB: Not so much initially. I mean, it was pretty evident what was going on with the fire. Once we were out of Cache Creek, I found a lot of the officials did an unbelievable job. But there is an assumption that everybody is connected to local news via websites and social media, Facebook, etc., but there's still a lot of us that aren't up to speed on that. I was lucky I had somebody in town that was texting me and I was trying to keep a bunch of my neighbours informed of what was going on because they couldn't get any information either.

DM: As you were leaving Cache Creek did you see the fires?

CB: I did — oh yeah. They were fires. They were basically a lot of smoke. You couldn't really see. And the winds that day were just unbelievable. I've lived in Cache Creek for 40 plus years and it's a windy little town, but that day it was incredible. And it was just driving wherever; the fire went where the wind went. You have to see it up here. It's kind of neat now that it's all gone through, just the pattern the fire took through the area.

DM: You said the airports no longer there?

CB: No, the buildings are no longer there. They're gone. Coming down the Boston Flats area there is a house built on the side of the hill, and the fire went around both sides of it hopped over the highway burned down one house but left two beside it. It dropped over the bank to Boston Flats took out all those residents, and then it went into what is known as Coyote Valley. And I only know of one house down there that perished. Fire, it's its own beast.

DM: Chris, when you and your wife were evacuated you described it as an adventure. What was the adventure like?

CB: It wasn't too bad. Again, I will allude to the people that took care of us. The registration desks — all of the staff were fantastic. They kept smiles on their face. They kept reassuring everybody. Then our friends and family opened their doors to us. The thing is we should connect with people all the time like this. 'We're too busy, we're too busy.' We actually had some time to spend with our friends and family this time.

DM: But it also must have been quite stressful.

CB: It was in the first couple of days because I didn't know what was happening here. But I had a friend that was in Cache Creek and I was able to communicate with her and find out what was going on. The fact that our house, and actually the whole town of Cache Creek, is pretty much unscathed. And I was able to pass that on to friends of mine that didn't have a clue and couldn't find out. I'm not saying they didn't try to put the information out there. And a plug for CBC — I can't thank you enough for what you've done because you talked about our little town as well as all the rest of B.C.

DM: Your wife works in Ashcroft, B.C., and the Ashcroft area was hit extremely hard.

CB: They had a power outage for a very long time, but the fire itself didn't get across the river to them. It did come to north Ashcroft, it was threatening there but the wind pushed it the other way and up the hill.

DM: There are still fires burning near the Cache Creek area. What's the latest you're hearing?

CB: We're still on alert. I spent the first day back repacking my camper with stuff that I know I need. But we woke up this morning to quite a heavy smoke in the valley area, whereas yesterday it was clear as a bell. Now they're back burning to the north and west of us and there's chop. I'm outside right now and I don't know if you can hear the choppers going over me.

DM: I can hear them. You're packing for stuff that you know you need in case this happens again. What kind of stuff are you packing, Chris?

CB: Well, I'm pretty reliant on my wife and when she couldn't come home before we evacuated, I didn't know where stuff was, like insurance papers, passports, our marriage certificate. And I really wasn't thinking about it. So now we have a satchel with all of that with us at all times, along with some family pictures and things like that.

DM: It's good that you managed to get all that important stuff—and good you found your marriage certificate, too. Chris, Thank you very much for giving us the update and I'm glad you're back home.

CB: Thanks for keeping us informed. It was really important to a great number of people.