Story was written by George Henderson in the mycariboonow.com newsroom
Another milestone in what has been, on many fronts, an unprecedented wildfire season in the province.
Kevin Skrepnek is the Chief Wildfire Officer with the BC Wildfire Service…
“In terms of the money that has been spent also this would make this the highest if not, either one of the top seasons if not the most expensive in the province’s history depending on how you look at it, depending on how you want to factor in inflation, things like that, but one way or the other north of 400 million dollars already spent.”
404.1 million dollars to be exact and Skrepnek says that is just for the BC Wildfire Service and is not reflective of all the other agencies involved.
He says it is also unprecedented in terms of 1,061,618 hectares burned.
Skrepnek says it has already been a long fire season with 6 to 7 weeks of sustained and intense activity.
A lot of structures have been lost this year but he says more were lost back in 2003 and Skrepnek says a silver lining to all of this is that there hasn’t been a fatality or a serious injury…
“Given the sheer number of people that have been evacuated, given the thousands of people who’ve been on the fire lines on a daily basis, i think that speaks for the fact that both the public and the responders have been incredibly diligent in terms of what they’ve been doing and have been keeping their safety in mind first and foremost.”
Skrepnek says given how volatile and how dire this fire season has been at times, the BC Wildfire Service and everyone else involved, including the public, has show quite a bit of resilience.
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