The firefighter camp at Kin Race Track Park in Vernon. (Liam Verster/Vernon Matters)

By Liam Verster

80 new firefighters

Out of province firefighters join members working at the White Rock Lake fire

Aug 19, 2021 | 5:00 PM

The B.C. Wildfire Service (BCWS) is bolstering its ranks with firefighters from out of province, including a number who will join the ranks working at the White Rock Lake wildfire.

Todd Nessman, Manager of Fire Operations with the BCWS, stated during the Thursday provincial fire update that 153 firefighters from Quebec and 45 more from the Yukon arrived in B.C. this week. There were also Incident Management Teams (IMT) from Parks Canada, Alberta and the Northwest Territories brought to B.C. to support firefighting efforts.

Taylor Colman, a Fire Information Officer for BCWS, confirmed with Vernon Matters that some of the new personnel will be stationed in Vernon to help with firefighting efforts at the White Rock Lake wildfire.

“We’ve got four 20-person crews from Quebec heading to the White Rock Lake fire, so 80 firefighters total. They’re getting oriented with the incident [Thursday] and then hopefully getting on the line [Friday],” said Colman.

“We have two 20-person crews going to the Shuswap complex, and there’s, I think, four or five fires out there and I’m not sure how they’ll be split up or if they’ll be all together on one fire.”

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She adds there are 13 support staff in the IMTs coming into the province, and they will be split up and moved to where they’re needed.

With the addition of these firefighters, there are now approximately 3,800 personnel working on fires across the province.

“There are 1,250 contractors are currently working; we have 520 out of province resources, which includes 240 military; 430 structure protection personnel and assets are out. We have over 500 heavy equipment operators and pieces of equipment; 147 helicopters; 38 air tanker aircraft,” said Nessman.

He adds 20 personnel from Parks Canada and a number of overhead staff from Eastern Canada are expected to arrive in B.C. in the coming days.

Coleman confirms those personnel include four Newfoundlanders who arrived in B.C. Thursday, and three Nova Scotians arriving Friday, though it’s unclear at this time where they will be deployed.

Nessman added that fatigue continues to be an area of concern for the BCWS.

“It’s been a long summer for many of our firefighters and staff supporting the efforts,” said Nessman.

“With that increased fatigue we’re starting to see more safety concerns coming forward: more slips, trips, falls, those types of events, as well as other serious occurrences are happening. It’s something that we take serious and want to monitor to make sure out staff are safe.”

Nessman also noted that accommodation is always a challenge when dealing with so many personnel. While most are stationed in camps and sleeping in tents, there have been some cases where firefighters have been put up in hotel rooms to catch up on rest.

He said they are preparing to lose staff in the coming weeks as personnel go back to post-secondary institutions in September, and the BCWS will be working with its partners to mitigate the impact of losing those members.

In the meantime, the cooler, wetter weather this past week has been somewhat helpful for the firefighting efforts, but it’s not a long term fix.

“Some much needed rain earlier this week helped crews get a better handle on the fires, welcome news for all of us and especially for the many thousands of people living in fire affected communities,” said Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General Mike Farnworth told the media.

“But the rain has not been enough to fully combat the effects of the already tinder dry conditions that are fueling these fires. We’re no where near out of the woods, and we have to keep working to support our firefighting and emergency management crews.”

Nessman added that not all of the province got precipitation this week, pointing specifically to the south Okanagan, which is still facing dangerous fire behaviour conditions and needs to be closely monitored.

“We’ve had a slow rebuild of fuels in terms of drying out the past Wednesday and Thursday, but the outlook is favourable,” Nessman explained.

“We’re going to see a series of lows coming through the province that will bring lower temperatures, increased [relative humidity] and scattered [precipitation] which will be favourable to our crews.”

Nessman said recent operations have led to tightening fire lines in much of the province, and teams will continue to do their best to contain fires and reduce further spread.