A mother and her three-year-old son are now safe on the Sunshine Coast after wildfires drove the pair from their Williams Lake home.
Maxine Sellars made the choice to leave Williams Lake on July 11 with her son Greyson and their dog Gru after the smoke became so thick she feared for their health.
“We weren’t actually evacuated, we were still on alert, but the smoke was so bad that my voice was changing. I was coughing and the top of my lungs started to hurt and I was worried about what it was doing to Greyson,” she said.
Sellars packed what she could into her Jeep and decided to set out towards the Sunshine Coast, where her sister Dionne Paul lives. At that time all of the roads going south from Williams Lake were closed, so she had to head north.
As she left her home that morning, thick flakes of ash started raining down around her. Just four days later, on July 15, Williams Lake residents who hadn’t left yet would be ordered to evacuate.
“In Williams Lake there were two big fires on either side of us. In the northeast you could see a big, big cloud of smoke and then looking south there was another huge cloud and that was awful seeing that,” Sellars said.
After leaving Williams Lake, Sellars ended up at an evacuation centre in Prince George where she spent hours registering for support, unsure where she and her son would stay for the night. She ultimately found a campsite just outside Prince George where residents had offered tents and trailers to those who needed them. The campground owner also had a list of caring locals who were willing to open their homes to evacuees for showers or to do their laundry.
During the second day of camping, rain set in and the cold, wet weather prompted Sellars to get back on the road and try heading for the Coast once more.
“My plan was to try to make it to Sechelt, but that was a long trip because our direct route was still closed – so we would have to take alternate highways to Kamloops, which on the map was almost a seven-hour drive on a highway I didn’t know,” Sellars said.
She left Prince George on Thursday, July 13, ultimately making it to Kamloops around midnight.
“As we were driving down I could see the fires in, I think it was Little Fort. You could see the fires up in the mountain, so that was kind of unnerving, trying to get away from the fires and then seeing the fires at night,” Sellars said.
Kamloops was the last fire evacuation centre on Sellars’ route to the Coast, so she registered there for some food vouchers and spent two days with family in the area. However, she felt pressed to move on when news of the evacuation of Williams Lake was made official on July 15.
Her family members in Kamloops were setting up tents and cots and making as much room as possible for the evacuees who were expected to arrive the next day.
“All of the remaining evacuees, about 10,000 people, were being evacuated to Kamloops,” Sellars said. “You could just feel the energy when you were at the evac centre because we just found out that our home town got evacuated, and you were thinking ‘oh my God, my home is gone.’ So I left there kind of in a daze.”
On Sunday, July 16, Sellars and her son finally made it to Horseshoe Bay to catch the ferry to Langdale and seeing it pull in was a huge relief for Sellars. “I’ve never been so happy to see a ferry in my whole life,” she said, noting she was sleep deprived and had been living in a state of anxiety for about a week.
She arrived at her sister’s house in Sechelt at about 8 p.m. to find donations of clothes and toys and a home-cooked meal waiting for her.
Her sister had put out a call for donations and support via Facebook and it was quickly answered by the Coast community.
Individuals donated clothes, shoes, toys and even haircuts for Sellars and her son and businesses like Cactus Flower and Twisted also offered free outfits.
All For Pets in Sechelt provided free food for dog Gru and The Landing Vet Clinic in Gibsons gave a free vet’s visit.
Sellars said the outpouring of love and support from the Sunshine Coast community was humbling and greatly appreciated.
She’s not sure when she’ll be able to return home to Williams Lake, but she’s thankful to be in a place where she can finally let her guard down, relax and recharge a little.
“Today I feel more rested and I feel more like me,” Sellars said, noting the constant state of anxiety and fear she was in while fleeing the wildfires has finally subsided.
She’s been checking the state of things back home every day and so far her home has been kept safe by local fire crews who stayed to protect properties. She’s thankful for their efforts, as well as the efforts of all the volunteers at evacuation centres and the generosity she’s received from complete strangers. “It’s just amazing,” she said.
If you would like to donate to help Sellars and her son while they’re displaced, a Royal Bank account has been opened in her name.
