May 15--After nine days of searching for a missing fire chief believed to have been swept away by flood waters, Canadian authorities have called off their exhaustive search.
CKNW reports that Ashcroft RCPM on Sunday suspended all search efforts for fire chief Clayton Cassidy, who went missing May 5 while checking on rising flood waters in Cache Creek in British Columbia.
Even with search and rescue crews being helped by dozens of volunteers, no signs were found of the Cache Creek chief during the search. The only clue came when his vehicle was found against a washed-out bridge the day he went missing.
Cpl. Dan Moskaluk with Ashcrost RCPM told CKNW that it's been hard on the community to not have any closure.
"To lose a representative who's a volunteer and full-time firefighter in a small community, it certainly is an incident that galvanizes itself into the fabric of the community."
Moskaluk said water levels haven't changed since Cassidy's disappearance, which only made the search harder and impossible to continue at full capacity.
"We still have fairly high water conditions and fast moving water in the area. Searchers have exhausted the possible efforts to search the areas with the given conditions as they are now."
He says creek waters will still be checked twice daily in hopes the levels start to go down, according to CKNW.
Cassidy was with the Cache Creek department for decades and was recently awarded a medal for good citizenship after helping residents during flooding in 2015.
