B.C.’s Cariboo Regional District mulls wildfire proposals after last summer’s devastating blazes

WILLIAMS LAKE, B.C. — A regional government in British Columbia’s southern Interior is mulling more than 70 recommendations to improve its response to wildfires.

Devastating blazes charred thousands of square kilometres of timber and bush within the boundaries of Cariboo Regional District last year.

The recommendations are part of a report following community consultations last fall.

Regional district chair Margo Wagner says some of the proposals would require help from the provincial government, but others related to local operations could be implemented first.

She says those would include improved communications or better permitting to allow residents to more easily return to evacuated areas.

The B.C. Wildfire Service website shows 18 major blazes and dozens of smaller fires destroyed more than 12,000 square kilometres of woodland in 2017. There were five notable fires across the Cariboo region, including one that forced the evacuation of the entire City of Williams Lake.

Wagner has formed an emergency preparedness committee and said one focus will be to ensure communities are not isolated for long periods if wildfires rage nearby. “(That) happened this past summer because of a lot of road closures that we deemed necessary at the time. But because it went on for so long, it became a struggle with getting food supplies in.”

The wildfire service says fires around Williams Lake and Soda Creek forced people from there and surrounding areas from their homes for weeks.

A huge blaze that formed when 20 smaller fires merged into one chewed through more than 5,450 square kilometres of backcountry west of Williams Lake, making it the largest fire in B.C.’s recorded history.

Statistics show more than 65,000 people were displaced across B.C. last July, August and part of September, and hundreds of buildings were lost.