The South Cariboo Fire Relief Fund (SCFRF) has begun distributing money to ease the burdens of the emergency responders and individuals affected by this year’s intense and huge fires through losses or their volunteer work to battle these blazes.
Chris Nickless says the SCFRF committee consists of representatives from the 100 Mile Lions Club, (himself), the Cariboo Regional District and the District of 100 Mile House, as well as Cariboo-Chilcotin MLA Donna Barnett.
“We presented South Cariboo Search and Rescue [SCSAR] with $9,000, as per their submitted request, and they will be using it to enhance their emergency response capabilities.”
This is just the start of distributing these monies, donated by the community, with more to be going out to fire departments in the area and individuals who have been affected by losses due to the fires, he explains, in accordance with the general public input received by the SCFRF committee.
Nickless says the committee members are currently reviewing all the needs of area fire departments and individuals that have previously submitted requests or come to their attention, to determine which ones will receive some of these funds to be administrated through the 100 Mile Lions Club (as a registered society).
The committee wants all those who contributed to this fund to know these monies are now being delivered out, he says, to the SCSAR, to approved area fire departments, and to individuals demonstrating the most needs stemming from wildfire impacts.
The fire departments will distribute any funds out, as appropriate, to their emergency rescue members, and possibly equipment needs, affected through the brave efforts of these valiant volunteers involved in wildfire fighting this year.
SCSAR vice-president Cameron Jensen says the $9,000 will be a big help to his search-and-rescue group.
“We are going to buy iPads and mapping software licenses, which will allow us to be able to build plans for searches or evacuations digitally – and no longer [rely on] the paper-and-pen maps. We can download data from the various websites, the regional districts for properties in the case of evacuations, and we will be able to plot that data onto the maps.”
Each map layer can be built to add on for each and every team, and each team’s assignment can be viewed by any other team, allowing reassignments to go forward “on the fly” rather than having to go back to the command centre, as a team, to get the next assignment, he explains.
“Also, it will give the search managers real-time locations of the teams, therefore they get the proximity to the fire, in the case of fires and evacuations; or they can detail [where they are] to send further teams out to that area without having to go through … traffic with evacuees.”
Jensen says another portion of the funds will be used for a new monitor for the command centre to display all the relevant information, as it is extrapolated from the digital data to the big screen where everyone can clearly see it.
This will make it “much easier” for the search manager in charge, who will see the breadcrumbs of everybody’s path through the new mapping software’s GPS function, to follow and zoom-in on each team “live” from the post back at command central, he explains.
Jensen says Sam Bergman, one of SCSAR’s three current search managers, was “very impressed” with the capabilities of this type of equipment and software, already in use by Central Cariboo SAR, when Bergman temporarily took over this leadership role for the command centre in Williams Lake about halfway through this summer’s wildfires.