By James Peters

Reinforcement en route to B.C. for exhausted firefighters

Jul 8, 2017 | 6:08 PM

KAMLOOPS — Help is on the way for forest firefighters overwhelmed with the explosion in the BC fire situation this weekend.

Chief Fire Information Officer Kevin Skrepnek says arrangements are being made to bring in reinforcements from elsewhere in Canada.

“We are working with the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre to bring in some additional resources. We haven’t pinned down the exact numbers yet, but that’s going to start early next week.”

“It’s going to be from within Canada. Typically, the other larger wildfire agencies in the country are Alberta and Ontario, so I imagine the bulk of the folks will be coming from those two provinces.”

According to a Global News Edmonton report, about 100 of those firefighters will come from Alberta, and will be arriving in Kamloops Monday.

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Skrepnek says there are a couple of reasons reinforcements from outside of BC could be very helpful.

“Not only to boost our own capacity, but also to give some of our crews a chance to grab a bit of a break here. It’s been long hours, and we’ve already had a few weeks of relatively steady conditions heading into this.”

“It’s a long summer ahead. We’re only eight days into July, so we need to make sure we’re pacing our crews.”