A British Columbia Wildfire Service (BCWS) representative met with South Green Lake Volunteer Fire Department Fire Chief Roger Graham and Assistant Fire Chief Bob Bell last fall to discuss the 2021 wildfire season.
Graham said the local fire department would have appreciated better communication from the BCWS during the Flat Lake Wildfire that came close to jumping highway 97 near Mount Begbie last summer.
(During the Flat Lake Wildfire] the Fire Chief said he was concerned about the lack of communications on firefighting updates for operations and controlled burns. Because of this the fire department had limited knowledge to answer questions from concerned residents when they saw smoke in the air.
“People phoned the fire department and ask what’s going on, but nobody tells us….”
Graham said he also asked why a guard was put in along the west side of Green Lake.
The guard was built without informing the residents or local fire departments about why it was built, he said, adding the residents were very concerned and thought that a big fire may be coming towards them.
The fire department had little information to inform the residents that the fire was not crossing the highway at that time.
The BCWS representative said it was a contingency fuel break in case the fire crossed the highway in the event of a wind shift. The main fire break is on the west side of Highway 97, he noted.
The BCWS representative said these concerns were similar to those the ministry got from other area fire departments. He added it was an issue of making sure area fire departments know which fires are being “actioned and how they were being actioned” and which ones are just being “monitored.”
It has been recognized that communications between BCWS and local fire departments need to be improved, the spokesman said, adding this is one of the main priorities they want to locally improve on for the 2022 fire season.
Another item in the discussion was the lifting of the campfire ban just prior to the Labour Day long weekend.
Graham said there were a lot of residents saying they thought it was way too early to lift the fire bans.
“They thought the provincial government was just buckling under the pressure of [part-time residents] coming up here to lift the fire bans.”
Graham said he got people phoning him asking why the campfire ban is being lifted “when we were in a wildfire situation and they wanted us to explain it to them when we don’t know any more than they do….”
Noting it was the campfire bans and not the open burning bans that were lifted, the BCWS representative said the lifting of fire bans is a matter of finding an average in the forest’s [moisture status].
He said the higher elevation could be wet, while the lower elevation could be dry, so they try to find a “happy medium.”
The BCWS representative said there was also conversation about the pile burning that happened in late fall and early winter (where the phase 1 of the South Green Lake fuel mitigation work was done), as well as the FireSmart efforts and recent projects in the South Green Lake community.
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