Residents Share Their Wildfire Experiences with CSRD

CSRD Bush Creek Community meeting Sorrento March 7, 2024. (Scoop Photo)

By Jo Anne Malpass

Residents within the Bush Creek East wildfire area shared their experiences with Columbia Shuswap Regional District emergency services representatives in March and talked one on one about where improvements are needed.

There were four in-person and two online meetings in March. At the final meeting, CSRD staff said there had been as many as over 100 people in attendance at the Celista meeting to about 30 at online events. There had already been over 400 surveys completed as well.

Attendees were told a report on “What we Heard”, prepared by consultants at Monogram Communications, should be ready to present to the CSRD Board in April and then will be publicly available.

CSRD Communications Tracy Hughes said there is an issue of trust that the CSRD needs to work on and rebuild. “We are committed to making improvements. Some might require working with other agencies or lobbying on your behalf.”

A variety of topics were discussed including problems with the Alertable app, delays in warning people to evacuate, why and who called in the RCMP, where emergency services failed to help evacuees, poor conditions of the evacuation routes, lack of support for agricultural producers, a water system going down during the fire fight, fire smart and conditions faced by residents who stayed behind.

Problems with the Alertable App were often mentioned. Some didn’t get the notice and others received it late. Tracy Hughes explained there were issues with Alertable, especially in terms of mapping but the CSRD worked with Alertable in the days after August 18 to fix things. She said one of the problems was people not setting it up correctly with their locations. She recommended using a broader area as your location.

CSRD CAO John McLean said the CSRD is responsible for issuing evacuation alerts on the advice of BC Wildfire. “We need to work at providing accurate information.”

He said issuing an evacuation order or alert involves a necessary and legal process. An incident has taken place, BC wildfire will ask for a coordination call that will have all the essential organizations in place and will recommend and propose an area. The CSRD will look at a map, produce the necessary legal documents to enact that order, prepare notifications using all the tools such as social media, get Alertable ready to go and then get the permission from the CSRD board chair to put the evacuation order in place.

McLean said that the CSRD is responsible for supplying security to evacuated areas, to ensure those properties stay safe. “We need to acknowledge we did ask for the roads to be blocked. We did not tell RCMP how to do that.”

There were also issues with emergency social services, where people went to Salmon Arm but were then sent to Kamloops. Emergency Social Services Cathy Semchuk said “we are hearing of some of those cases, where things didn’t work out. We were dealing with Roots and Blues and struggling to get people accommodation and it was a very difficult night for evacuees and volunteers as well. I want to guarantee you are not going unheard.” The province has been made aware that this system is not working.

People on both South and North Shuswap raised concerns about evacuation route conditions and lack of emergency signage. Emergency Operations Director Derek Sutherland said this is a common theme. The CSRD is lobbying forestry and the province to have routes maintained more regularly and plans are in the works to have road signage made up for these routes.