By Jill Sperling

Wildfire volunteers reflect during National Volunteer Week

Apr 18, 2018 | 4:07 PM

KAMLOOPS — Every year Kamloops celebrates its numerous volunteers with a barbecue lunch at the Sandman Centre Plaza during Volunteer Week. 

This year the 2017 wildfires were fresh on everyone’s minds, a difficult season that required the help of hundreds of Kamloops citizens working to host thousands of evacuees. 

During much of the wildfire season the Emergency Support Services’ reception centre was located at the Sandman Centre.

“It’s really nice to have the celebration right here today for the volunteers because this whole plaza was covered with tents and all sorts of different companies and resources that were here to help support the evacuees,” said reception centre Manager Gord Davis. “It’s nice to come back on a happy time, when the sun’s shining, and no smoke!”

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Volunteers from a variety of community organizations enjoyed a barbecue lunch in the sunshine, a token of gratitude from the city. 

“We’ve never had a shortage of volunteers for any of the events that we have,” said City Councillor Denis Walsh, “and we’ve had some huge events, from the Winter Games to everything, including the fire evacuations. I think it’s just outstanding that the people in Kamloops are so willing to give their time to help others.”

During the summer many communities were evacuated due to the increasing fire risk. 

Residents from Loon Lake, Cache Creek, Ashcroft, Clinton, 100 Mile and Williams Lake were sent to Kamloops. 

As the number of evacuees steadily increased, so did the volunteers. 

“We had volunteers arrive from all over the province, some of them with training, some of them not,” said Emergency Support Services Director Lyn Arikado. “We had businesses and suppliers in the city of Kamloops who were phenomenal, and some of them also supplied us with people to help us. It was a combination of all kinds of people, all kinds of situations that they came to us with, and we managed to look after them.”

More than 1,200 individual volunteers signed up to help evacuees at the ESS reception centre alone, putting in more than 40,000 hours of work. 

“None of us are really looking for recognition,” Davis said. “Our recognition, I guess, is helping other people, feeling that these people in crisis are being looked after. That’s what makes us feel good about being able to play a small part in that, and that’s what I think drives people. Most volunteers with us in our group or other groups, I like to think of them as givers. They’re giving back to their community and they have to make this a good place to live and belong to.” 

The TNRD is hosting an appreciation event Wednesday (April 18) night specifically for the volunteers who helped evacuees and their pets during the wildfires.