Wildfire threat looms as thousands in the Cariboo return home

Even with the good news that people in Williams Lake can head home, crews dealing with wildfires are preparing for a busy weekend.

Chief Fire Information Officer Kevin Skrepnek with the BC Wildfire Service says crews are pulling out all the stops to deal with fires burning around the province.

“Given the situation across BC right now, we have been relying on quite a bit of out-of-province resources. So both from other jurisdictions in Canada, and then we have also brought in folks from Australia as well.”

As an indication of how quickly some people might need to respond to a wildfire, people in the Cariboo –who are still under an evacuation alert– are being asked to sign up for an electronic notification system.

This will allow them to receive emails or text messages the moment an evacuation order is issued.

He adds the Wildfire Service is using all the resources it can to battle the flames, wherever they are.

“We’re also relying quite a bit on the forest industry right now,” says Skrepnek. “So we’ve brought in well over a thousand contract firefighters through the forest industry and specialists as well. Equipment operators, tree fallers, things like that.”

Skrepnek says people need to do their part to help, even though the province is whatever it can to ensure safety.

“Bringing these additional resources in has been key in terms of trying to pace our personnel and our crews,” says Skrepnek. “Just given how busy it has been given that the scale of what’s been going on in terms of the provincial state of emergency and the evacuations that are ongoing.”

Eight more wildfires have broken out in the province, bringing the total number of blazes currently burning to almost 140.

Though BC is using all of its available resources, Skrepnek says we can always call on other provinces or even countries to help out if needed.

“We are only now at about the midpoint of the summer. August is typically one of the busiest months and that’s still ahead of us, so we need to prepare ourselves for this to be the new normal for a little while until we see a real significant shift in the weather.”

Meanwhile, BC Hydro has announced some good news. Executives at the utility say all fire-related repairs should be done by the end of today. So far, 900 pieces of equipment have been fixed or replaced.

Hundreds of people –workers, contractors, and support staff– have been working to restore power to the tens of thousands of customers who had lost power.

The latest numbers suggest 50,000 customers have gotten electricity back.

BC Hydro is also helping out affected customers by working out delayed payment plans as well as discounts.