PRRD seeking better communication from wildfire service
Wildfire starts in the region are being reported by the media, before the Peace River Regional District receives any communication from the BC Wildfire Service, which is causing concern amongst staff and elected officials at the Regional District.
“We’ve learned about the last half dozen fire starts in the area through the media, and not by any communication to the Regional District,” PRRD Chief Administrative Officer Shawn Dahlen told the board last week.
Previous requests to the Prince George Fire Centre for notifications, have yielded little help, as they don’t have any specific communications products or distribution lists for when new fires start in the Fire Centre. If a fire meets guidelines for “wildfires of note” then notifications go out. Not all fires meet these criteria.
Instead, they referred the PRRD to the BCWS app, which connects to the BC Wildfire Dashboard. Reliance on the BCWS’s app, rather than direct communication with regions where fires start, has created issues with getting information out to the public, Dahlen told the PRRD board.
According to board chair Brad Sperling, the app doesn’t really work. “It only covers a certain area, so if you click on that and the fire is outside of that area, you’re not going to get anything on it.”
The app enables users to choose a focal point, such as Fort St. John, and gives alerts in a 100 km radius around that location when a fire starts. But Dahlen says it doesn’t help outside the radius.
“We would have to have someone monitor the app 24/7 in order to be able to pick that up off the app,” Dahlen said. “So, what we’re requesting is for BC Wildfire to actually let us know when there’s wildfire starts in the region.”
Not that the app doesn’t have potential. Area D director Leonard Hiebert says that the app can work if it’s updated properly. Hiebert found that during a recent fire close to his home, the app wasn’t updated for 48 hours. Yet, last year, he said BCWS had someone constantly updating the app.
“If they even had a 12-hour update on their app, it would eliminate a lot of the frustrations,” Hiebert said.
Dahlen said that as the PRRD is the one “responsible for emergencies within the Peace River Regional District, it would be great if that could be communicated directly from the province.”
As the local authority in the region, it undermines their credibility when the PRRD isn’t informed about an issue within the region.
“Asking when it starts is a must because it’s our EOC that kicks into gear should something happen,” said Hiebert. “If we’re finding out after the fact, now all of a sudden they’re playing behind the eight-ball.”
The board voted to send a letter to the Ministry of Forest, Ministry of Water, Lands and Natural Resources, and the Ministry of Municipal Affairs requesting that the PRRD be notified about new fire starts in the region.
“They have to realize that many of our residents don’t have the app, don’t have access to that app and they rely on us and whatever media we can to get information out there,” said Sperling. “IF our staff aren’t being contacted immediately or kept up to date, it creates anxiety.”