Smokey Summer in Williams Lake

The Cariboo Region was all ablaze this Summer. There were so many fires - many of them joined to make HUGE fires! There was actually one on the hill behind our house but it was put out quickly. We were lucky to be out of town some of the time that the smoke was really bad in Williams Lake.
After the long weekend in August, parts of Williams Lake and surrounding areas were on alert and some on evacuation and moved into town. Our population almost doubled with all the firefighters in town! And there were always helicopters and airplanes flying over head.
The hospital was so smokey some days that they had to turn the smoke alarms off because the smoke outside was setting them off! There was a constant haze down the hallways. As soon as you went outside, you would cough because of how thick the smoke was. Some days we couldn't see the lake from our window. And in town you couldn't see across the street!
We did get some beautiful red sunsets though! I can't believe that I didn't take any photos of the smoke. So I borrowed a few from a couple of local photographers just so the people who weren't here to witness it could see what it was like:

View of town from Fox Mountain (Laureen Carruthers photo)
This was taken in the middle of the day! (Leslie Rowse photo)

(Laureen Carruthers photo)

(Leslie Destree photo)

We are so happy to have our blue skies and clear air back! For a week the days were dark and it felt like Winter. Now we have our sunny skies, but the temperature is feeling like Fall!