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net 100 Mile House Free Press Thursday, October 14, 2021 A9

FIREFIGHT 2021
COMMUNITY APPRECIATION
Local firefighters ‘truly admirable’: Wagner
Kelly Sinoski Cariboo region. “To me, wild- the changing face of wildfires, times the area that burned this of the Deka Lake evacuation, organization it would have
100 Mile Free Press fire firefighting is more dan- he is considering getting ev- summer. More than 60,000 ESS was then only open for been fabulous.”
gerous than structure fires eryone trained so they don’t British Columbians were also four hours a day and avail- District of 100 Mile House

W
hen lightning struck
in late June, setting
much of the South
Cariboo ablaze, it was the
local firefighters who respond-
ed first.
They were there within
minutes, staying for days or
weeks after to patrol or douse
hotspots. Others offered their
services to BC Wildfire by pa-
trolling scenes, offering struc-
tural protection, shuttling
water or aiding with pumps
and hoses, as wildfires burned
across every community. With
the exception of 100 Mile Fire
Rescue, most of these firefight-
ers were volunteers - either in
tax-based halls run by regional
districts or independent soci-
eties. There are 13 halls in the
South Cariboo, along with the
Canim Lake Band.
“For these volunteer fire-
fighters, to take this on and
be willing to step up, it’s truly
admirable,” said Margo Wag-
ner, chair of the Cariboo Re-
gional District, which oversees
six volunteer halls in the South
in the Cariboo. I totally give
credit to the volunteers.”
From June 30 to Aug. 24,
some 263 fires raged in the
Cariboo, burning 129,591
hectares in the region. Al-
most every community was
evacuated or on alert as fire-
fighters battled increasingly
aggressive wildfires that came
on the heels of a heat dome.
The threat of more aggressive
wildfires to come has prompt-
ed many fire departments to
consider more wildland train-
ing for their crews.
At the moment it’s a pro-
vincial responsibility to fight
wildfires, although local crews
are often called in to help BC
Wildfire. They get compensat-
ed for their efforts.
“Our firefighters only get
involved when an interface
fire goes into a forest or vice
versa,” Wagner said. “We al-
ways need more firefighters to
be honest.”
John Grieve, fire chief of
the Lone Butte Volunteer
Fire Department, said given
have to rely on crews coming
in from elsewhere.
“It’s just becoming the
norm,” he said. “We’re seeing
wildland fires more often up
here. We can’t just say that’s
wildland’s job. We are seeing
that obviously wildland is
stretched thin so we have to
step up.”
He noted it’s important to
have both local and BC Wild-
fire crews working together,
especially as wildfires are
seasonal.
“These guys that are on the
ground are doing as much as
they can,” he said. “We don’t
fight wildland fires all year.
when they get this bad, how do
you react? You can’t have peo-
ple just sitting there waiting.”
While the Cariboo’s wild-
fire season this past summer
was “busier than normal” ac-
cording to local officials, it was
nowhere near as destructive as
2017 in terms of total hect-
ares burned in the region. In
2017, 871,005 hectares in the
Cariboo burned, more than six
evacuated from their homes
due to the threat of wildfire
four years ago.
By comparison, the Emer-
gency Operations Centre at
the Cariboo Regional District,
which had already been open
for a year dealing with floods,
issued 6,000 orders and alerts
and 56 orders from July 15-
Aug. 15. It was focused on the
wildfires for 53 days.
At the Emergency Social
Services in 100 Mile this sum-
mer, volunteers provided 72-
hour support and follow-up
to 1,178 evacuees plus 125
kids from Deka Lake, Lytton,
Egan Lake, Sparks Lake, 70
Mile, Flat Lake, Canim Lake,
Falkland, Logan Lake and
Lower Nicola, according to
ESS director Liz Jones. About
$318,153.33 was spent provid-
ing evacuees with lodging, bil-
leting, food, incidentals and
clothing.
Jones said her team worked
24/7 during the 2017 wildfires.
While this summer it was in-
tense during the initial days
able by phone. They were also
able to place people closer to
home, sending them to Lac La
Hache, the 108 Community
hall, 100 Mile campground or
campsites behind the South
Cariboo Rec Centre. Spaces
for animals were offered be-
hind the rec cente, the Wil-
liams Lake and Clinton rodeo
grounds or by local ranchers.
“This year Lac La Hache
got a lot because they were
never on alert,” Jones said.
“We had a lot of space this
time around.”
Local restaurants also
stepped up, with Smitty’s,
the Chartreuse Moose, BJ’s
Donuts and Canadian 2 for
1 Pizza providing lunches for
the volunteeers. The Salvation
Army food truck also provid-
ed “amazing” dinners for the
Deka Lake evacuees and fire
crews, she said.
“It worked well. We’ve never
had them come before because
we’ve always been an evacuat-
ed zone,” she said. “That was a
good experiment. With more
Mayor Mitch Campsall ex-
tended his thanks to the fire-
fighters and support crews
with the BC Wildfire Service,
the RCMP, Search and Rescue,
ESS, and all the many agencies
who supported the wildfire ef-
fort during a “difficult fire sea-
son. He also acknowledged the
logging community for their
“tireless efforts” assisting the
Wildfire Service.
Campsall said in a media
release that his staff worked
tirelessly in the Emergency
Operations Centre for most
of the summer and said the
district was thankful it didn’t
have to put its Emergency
Preparedness and Evacuation
Plan to the test.
He added the district has
been preparing for future fire
events by undertaking fuel
mitigation projects - harvest-
ing, tree thinning, pruning and
reduction of fuel loading -
around 100 Mile House, Horse
Lake and Lone Butte, thanks
to funding from the Forest
Enhancement Society of BC.