We-Cruz evacuated in Glenrosa Fire

[AJAEbj42]

Just wanted to let you know that We-Cruz (Ian) and his wife Rene were forced to evacuate their home in the Glenrosa area around 5:30 this afternoon because of the large forest fire that is burning there.

Ian is a good friend of mine, he just happens to be married to my great sister too!

We have family in the Kelowna area so they have a place to stay for the next while.

They are safe with their pets, van and land cruiser. I think the work van had to stay behind. :whoops:

I will post any updates as I hear from them.

 

[Gold Boy]

thanks for the up-date Rob, please do keep us posted.

in my prayers are Ian and Geordie and the rest.

Simon

 

[We-Cruz]

Well they just announced that we get to go home.

We're not totally out of the woods yet as we'll still be on standby evacuation. We've had quite the adventure for the past three days. The out-pouring of generosity was amazing - I had many offers for free lodging from co-workers and customers that i just met. The fire crews and emergency personnel have performed an amazing job. We had six helicopters and 4 water bombers on the fire within an hour of the first signs of smoke. Unfornatley they had to contend with 70km winds and the fire mananged to jump the highway and spread at an alarming rate. 3 homes and trailer were burnt to the ground by the end of the day . In all 17,000 people were evacuated by nightfall. Our neighbours were evacuated twice in the same day! (The family that they saught refuge with were evacuated at 2am in the morning!).
The emergeny responders were extremely well prepared and had an emergency centre organized within hours of the start of the fire.

We still have three fires that the fire crews are working on.

I managed to snap a few photo's from my house before we were evacuated.



In the second picture you can see how close the fire is getting to the two houses in the lower left corner!!


I must say it's quite an uneasy feeling running around the house trying to figure out what really needs to be saved. In the end I realized that the "stuff" that was really important - fit into two small boxes (In the back of the landcruiser of course). ln the end all that really mattered was that my family (& pets) were all safe.

Ian

 

[We-Cruz]

More pics from castanet.net

 

[We-Cruz]

Couple more from castanet