How the coronavirus will complicate B.C.’s wildfire season
Posted April 14, 2020 3:38 pm.
Last Updated April 14, 2020 10:34 pm.
This article is more than 5 years old.
KELOWNA (NEWS 1130) – Every spring, as snow melts, forests dry, and more campfires are lit, British Columbians brace for another season of freshet floods and wildfires, hoping their towns, homes, and livelihoods will be spared.
But this year the province is already in a state of emergency – the COVID-19 pandemic – that threatens its ability to keep the coming fires at bay.
“The current pandemic will make the work of emergency managers more challenging, as it has in all aspects of our society,” reads a statement from the province’s coronavirus joint information centre.
B.C.’s Wildfire Service is already shifting its plans in response to the virus, information officer Jody Lucius told NEWS 1130.
“There’s been a lot of time and effort dedicated to reviewing the practices that we have, working with the public health officers and trying to ensure that we’re ready for the season that we know is inevitably coming,” she said.
Firefighters to be separated when possible
Lucius said the service has cancelled its annual boot camp in Merritt, which usually trains some 200 new recruits over two weeks. Instead, rookie firefighters are being spread across the province and trained both virtually and in smaller groups to reduce the risk of the virus spreading among the essential workers, she said.
“It’s a really good bonding experience and, obviously, an educational piece for them, but it also poses a risk in this environment,” Lucius said.
Once the fire season picks up, firefighters will also be living and working differently than in years past.
The Wildfire Service was already moving away from housing its workers in camps of up to 200, Lucius said, but now there is more urgency to keep people separated as much as possible.
Firefighters and other staff will be staying in smaller camps outfitted with more showers, laundry machines and handwashing stations, she said.
Typically, workers have been transported in trucks with three to five passengers, but that number will hopefully be lower this year, according to Lucius, who said the service may need to acquire more trucks to make that possible.
As for the actual work of combating fires, Lucious said, the workers should be safe.
“One of the things that’s nice for us … is that, of course, wildfires are outdoors – and so it typically allows us the space and room to move so that we can contain physical distancing,” she said.
Personnel issues could change wildfire strategy
Lucius said it’s too early to tell whether the pandemic will change the Wildfire Service’s overall response once the fire season ramps up – which fires are left to burn, which are attacked and how. That could depend on the numbers and health of its personnel, she said.
The Wildfire Service has also called for bans on open fires across the province, including resource management fires such as slash burning by the forestry industry.
The bans, set to come into force on Thursday, are earlier than usual this year to limit the risk of wildfires and smoke that can exacerbate COVID-19 symptoms. Lucius said.
‘“We probably wouldn’t be putting those bans in place this early on in a normal year, but of course unusual circumstances call for unusual measures,” she said.
Emergency operations centres to go virtual
Lance Kayfish, a risk manager leading the City of Kelowna’s response to the coronavirus, said planning for this freshet and fire season hasn’t been very different from year’s past.
Officials have been using phones, emails, and video conferencing to hold meetings and “finding ways of doing same processes but without being in the same room,” said Kayfish, who is also on the Regional District of South Okanagan’s emergency operations command team.
“There’s been some hiccups along the way as people are learning new technologies,” he said, but as everyone becomes more familiar with the tools they become better prepared for the spring and summer.
During wildfire season, officials from various government bodies often convene at emergency operations centres to help coordinate cross-juristional responses. But this year, those efforts will be done virtually as much as possible, he said.
If towns or areas need to be evacuated, people fleeing floods and fires will be able to get vouchers for hotels and other services virtually without having to go to a reception centre, which are typically set up in school gymnasiums, Kayfish said.
Kayfish said various government agencies are working with hotels across the province to plan for potential evacuations, he said.
