Premier ‘grateful’ for B.C.’s ‘brave’ firefighters
PEMBERTON — Firefighters battling the flames in B.C.’s forests are playing a dangerous game with an opponent that doesn’t play by the rules, said Premier Christy Clark.
Clark was in Pemberton, a small community east of the Elaho blaze, on Wednesday. The fire, at 200 square kilometres, is one of the largest in B.C., and the Wildfire Service said it is burning uncontained because it’s generating too much smoke for aircraft to fight.
Fire information officer Kevin Skrepnek said about 190 wildfires are burning around the province, 31 of those started on Tuesday alone.
Clark told reporters the government will spend what’s needed to fight the flames and call upon the necessary resources, even if that means going around the world.
“You know, I was saying to one of the guys, ‘Fighting fires, fighting these kinds of fires, is like playing a chess game,”’ she said.
“‘You’ve got to figure out the people that you need, the resources that you need, have them deployed in the right spot. The difference is, when you are playing a chess game with a forest fire, your opponent cheats. They don’t play by the rules and that’s the problem that these brave men and women are facing every day.”’
Clark also referred to the three-square-kilometre fire burning north of the Sunshine Coast community of Sechelt that claimed the life of a 60-year-old man on Sunday.
Logger John Phare was struck and killed by a falling tree.
“We should all be really grateful for what they are doing,” she said of the firefighters. “They are blackened and dirty and sweaty and they’re very much in harm’s way every minute of the day and they’re doing that for all of us in the province.”
Forty properties in B.C. remained on evacuation order Wednesday, including some cabins, and about 500 homes were on evacuation alert. A fire east of Lake Kookanusa has been contained and all evacuation alerts issued by the Regional District of East Kootenay for areas around the fire have been lifted.