B.C.’s Cariboo Regional District mulls over 70 firefighting ideas

WILLIAMS LAKE — 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 chairwoman 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. Wagner says the regional district is prepared for another wildfire season.

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.

“We have to remember that this past summer was like a hundredyear event for the Cariboo,” said Wagner.

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.

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.

More than 65,000 people were displaced across B.C. last year.