The short answer: update your Google Business Profile first — special hours for changed hours, "temporarily closed" only for a true closure, and a GBP post explaining what's going on. Then put one clear line at the top of your website, update your voicemail, pin one social post, and — the step everyone forgets — reverse all of it the same day you reopen. Ten minutes of updates saves days of confused customers calling the next name on Google.
Every summer in the BC Interior it's the same rhythm: a stretch of smoke days, an alert somewhere up the valley, a highway closure that cuts off half your customers, and a phone that won't stop ringing with one question — are you open?
With fires already burning in the province this July, this post is the checklist I wish more Kamloops, Sun Peaks, and North Thompson businesses had taped next to the till. To be clear about scope: FireSmart BC and EmergencyInfoBC handle the physical-safety side — evacuation alerts, orders, and preparing your property. Follow them, not me, for that. This post covers the part nobody writes about: what your customers see online while it's happening.
Because here's what actually occurs during a smoke event. A visitor at Sun Peaks googles your restaurant before driving down. A regular checks your Google listing before loading the kids in the car. A tourist stuck behind a closure on Highway 5 searches "is [your town] open". If your online presence says nothing — or worse, says the wrong thing — they assume the worst and go elsewhere. Calmly keeping that information current is the whole job.
1. Google Business Profile first — it's what people check before calling
Your Google Business Profile is the first thing most customers see, before your website and before they dial. It's the highest-leverage five minutes on this list.
Use special hours, not "permanently closed." In your GBP dashboard, Edit profile → Hours → Special hours lets you set changed hours for specific dates — "closing at 3 pm due to smoke" — without touching your regular schedule. Never, ever mark yourself "permanently closed" to signal a temporary disruption. Google treats that as the business ceasing to exist: your listing can drop out of results, and getting it fully restored is slow and painful.
Reserve "temporarily closed" for true closures. Google does have a "temporarily closed" status, and it's the right tool if you're genuinely shut — evacuated, no access, closed indefinitely. It's honest, it's reversible, and it hurts far less than wrong hours do: a customer who drives to a dark building because your listing said "Open" is a customer you've lost twice. But if you're merely on reduced hours, use special hours instead — "temporarily closed" for a business that's actually half-open costs you the customers who would have come.
Post an update. A GBP post takes four minutes and shows up right on your listing: "We're open regular hours — air's smoky but the patio's covered and the AC works. Highway 1 access is normal." That single post answers the question before anyone has to call.
Update the description and answer the Q&A. If access has changed — a detour, a closed parking lot — add one line to your business description. And check the Q&A section on your listing: during events, people ask "are you open?" right there, and anyone can answer if you don't. Be the one who does.
If you haven't looked at your profile in a while, the free GBP audit tool runs a 13-point check in two minutes — worth doing before the smoke rolls in, so you're not discovering a locked account mid-event. And if keeping the profile current is the thing that always slips, that's exactly what Google Business Profile management is for.
2. Put one clear line at the top of your website
Not a blog post. Not a page three clicks deep. One banner line at the very top of every page:
"Open regular hours during the smoke advisory. Highway access normal. Questions? Text 250-555-0123."
Three things it should always answer: open or closed, changed hours if any, and an alternate way to reach you. That's it. A buried update is the same as no update — people checking on their phone from a rest stop won't hunt for it.
3. Your phone: voicemail, and why text-back matters more right now
Update your voicemail greeting the same day anything changes: "You've reached [business]. We're open regular hours during the smoke event — leave a message or text this number."
But the bigger win is missed-call text-back — an automatic text that goes out the moment a call rings through unanswered. It matters more during a disruption than at any other time, because that's exactly when two things collide: call volume spikes with "are you open?" enquiries, and you're busiest dealing with the actual situation. Text-back means every one of those callers gets an instant "Yes — open regular hours, come on by" while you're moving stock or checking on staff. Here's how it works, and if you want the honest math on what unanswered calls cost in a normal month — let alone a chaotic one — it's more than you'd think.
4. Social: pin one update, keep it current
One pinned post per platform: status, hours, date. Update the same post (or replace it) as things change rather than scattering updates down your feed.
The expensive mistake is the stale one. A "we're closed until further notice" post still pinned two weeks after you reopened tells every new visitor you're shut. That's real revenue quietly walking to the competitor whose feed says "open." Put a date on every status post — "Closed Tuesday July 14" ages honestly; "closed for now" never does.
5. Reviews: smoke season produces grumpy ones — respond calmly
Disruption means service hiccups: slower food, a cancelled booking, a patio closed on the one day someone drove up for it. Some of that lands in your reviews, and a one-star "they were closed when Google said open" review stings — especially when the real culprit was an evacuation alert.
Respond, but calmly. Acknowledge, explain briefly ("we closed early on the 14th under the smoke advisory"), and offer to make it right. Future customers read your response, not just the complaint, and a measured reply during a hard week says more about your business than fifty five-star reviews. There's a full playbook in how to respond to a negative Google review.
6. Reopening: the step everyone forgets
Here's the pattern I see every single summer: businesses are diligent about announcing a closure and silent about the reopening. Meanwhile "are they open again?" searches spike after an event — everyone who stayed away is now checking whether it's safe to come back.
The day you reopen, reverse everything:
- Special hours off / "temporarily closed" removed in GBP — same day, not "when I get to it."
- Reopening GBP post: "We're open — the smoke's cleared and the patio's running. Come see us." This is the single most-read post you'll make all season.
- Website banner down (or swapped to "we're back").
- Pinned social post replaced with the reopening announcement.
- Voicemail back to normal.
Reopening loudly is free marketing to an audience actively looking for the answer. Don't waste it.
Before the smoke arrives: a ten-minute prep list
The whole checklist above assumes you can act fast on a bad day. Set that up on a good one:
- Know your GBP login. Confirm today that you can sign in and edit — recovering access to a listing set up by a long-gone employee takes weeks, not minutes. (The audit tool will surface gaps while you're in there.)
- Have a banner ready. Know exactly how to add a notice bar to your site — or have your web person's number handy. If neither is true, that's a website problem worth fixing before August.
- Set up missed-call text-back now. It pays for itself in ordinary missed calls year-round; during an event it's the difference between answering everyone and answering no one.
- Write the voicemail script in advance. Two sentences in your notes app, ready to record.
None of this is dramatic. It's the online equivalent of knowing where the extinguisher is — small, boring preparation that makes a stressful week noticeably less so, for you and for every customer trying to support you through it.
If you want a second set of eyes on how your business shows up online — Google listing, website, and where the calls are leaking — book a free website review. And the free GBP audit tool will check your profile's foundations in two minutes, no login required.
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