City of Prince George emergency management staff are expecting at least one or two more groups of wildfire evacuees to arrive in Prince George before the end of the wildfire season.
Currently, 125 evacuees have registered at the city’s emergency reception centre at the Kin 1 Arena lobby, according to city manager of emergency programs Tanya Spooner. Roughly 1,000 households across northern B.C. are under evacuation alert and may have to evacuate on short notice, Spooner said.
“We anticipate this is going to be a long, hot summer,” Spooner said. “We are active. We are ready for anyone who needs to come here.”
Anyone who is currently subject to an evacuation order can register at the centre and receive provincially-funded supports including compensation for accommodation and food, Spooner said. A logistics team at the centre works with the local hotel industry to find places for evacuees to stay.
People who have “self-evacuated” while under an alert may be eligible for supports, if there are extenuating health or other circumstances, Spooner added.
In addition to registering evacuees, the emergency evacuation centre has an information board with the latest information on evacuation orders and alerts in the region, and a computer terminal for evacuees to look up the latest on the alerts and orders in their community. Evacuees and residents can also find current information about the evacuation alerts and orders on the Emergency Info BC website.
Currently, the emergency reception centre is open from noon to 6 p.m., Monday to Friday, Spooner said, but the hours will vary depending on the need. The centre will stay set up until the end of the fire season, but may not always be open and staffed.
Prince George has established itself as a community that has the capacity, services and resources to accommodate evacuees, Spooner said. The regional B.C. emergency management office is also located in the city, Spooner said, which makes collaboration between the city and provincial government easier.
“We have a fairly large team,” she said. “(And) we’ve done it before.”
In addition to having a central location in the region, the city has a large hotel sector, shopping and government services for evacuees to replace items from clothes to ID that may have been left behind, she added.
Wildfire evacuations in northern B.C. are happening more frequently, and that means evacuees arriving in the city will also be a more frequent occurrence.
“We’ll be in this for awhile. Four of the last six years we’ve activated (the city’s emergency reception centre) to this level,” city director of public safety Adam Davey said. “The bottom line is Prince George is the hub.”
