More relief on the way for exhausted BC firefighters

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) — Crews tired from fighting to keep flames away from the homes of more than 6,000 British Columbians are getting some much-needed relief from Mexico and the US.

Chief Information Officer Kevin Skrepnek says, on Friday, 108 firefighters from Mexico will temporarily join the BC Wildfire Service.

“We had about 27 firefighters, as well, who arrived over the weekend from the US — personnel from Minnesota, Wisconsin and Michigan amongst a group of about 100 Ontario personnel who arrived over the weekend.”

He says the crews from Mexico went to Alberta last summer, but this is their first time here.

“They’ve never been deployed to BC before. They’re going to be valuable assets to us. Certainly, no relief in sight, so these additional resources are incredibly valuable to us.”

Nearly 800 out-of-province firefighters are now in BC, as well as more than 1,400 contract personnel and nearly 200 aircraft supporting ground crews.

“National resources are starting to get more scarce. Some of the other provinces, their own danger is starting to increase, so we are still getting support. It’s just not to the same level as what we necessarily are looking to bring in to the province, so that we can rest our crews periodically.”

“The smoke is not helping”

Skrepnek says ongoing hot and dry conditions mean more fires could be sparked and the nearly 140 already burning could spread.

“Predominantly sunny and dry conditions are going to be persisting. Temperatures in southern BC are going to be reaching the mid to high 30’s by mid-week.”

Skrepnek says the smoke is not helping.

“It hampers our visibility — both in terms of fighting the fires that we’ve already got, but also in terms of detecting new fires. It creates a lot of safety issues for our aircraft. We can’t fight what we can’t see out there.”

Since April 1st, 840 fires have scorched more than 460,000 hectares at a cost of $188 million.

Updated numbers on property destroyed by wildfires

Of the 305 structures lost so far this season, 71 were homes.

Robert Turner with Emergency Management BC says the hardest hit areas have been in the Cariboo and Thompson-Nicola, as well as Ashcroft.

As many as 7,000 people remain under evacuation orders.

“The three most impacted areas have been the Cariboo Regional District, the Thompson-Nicola Regional District and the Ashcroft Indian Band. To that, we could add Lake Country in the Central Okanagan Regional District which lost eight homes in the fire there.”

Turner says three commercial buildings were also lost, as well as 116 out-buildings, including barns and sheds.

About 115 haven’t been identified yet, but he insists no critical infrastructure has been lost.

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