“We’re really preparing for the worst case scenario on wildfires,”: Hall

The City of Prince George is dealing with a case of Deja Vu as they brace for a large volume of wildfire evacuees for the second straight year.

During last year’s wildfire crisis, over 10,000 evacuees fled to Prince George with half of them taken in by complete strangers.

While the city doesn’t expect to reach last year’s numbers, Mayor Lyn Hall says they’re bracing for a large turnout.

“We’re really preparing for the worst case scenario and of course, we experienced that last year with over 10,000 evacuees here, we’re prepared for as many as we need to take in and as many that want to come to Prince George.”

Finding a place to stay for any displaced wildfire evacuees will prove to be a little more tricky this year.

With the wildfire season not flaring up until late July, housing people at UNBC and CNC isn’t an option with the new school year fast approaching.

However, the city has a number of civic-owned facilities they can turn to if the evacuee numbers increase.

“What will happen if we have to increase lodging is that we’ll have to do it in our own facilities, we’ll look at using any facility that we own including the Kin Centres, we have the Civic Centres and there is a number of facilities we can move into if we have to.”

Over 150 evacuees are in the city right now with more expected in the next few days, they’re being asked to sign up at the Emergency Reception Centre at CN Centre.

Anyone needing a place to stay will be put in a hotel or motel for the time being.

At this time the city hasn’t asked residents to offer their homes to evacuees, but Hall admits that’s not out of the picture if a flood of out-of-town residents makes their way to Prince George.

“We may get to that point but it ultimately depends on the weather and it does not look that good and when we first opened the Emergency Operations Centre we did say we aren’t looking for volunteers but we could be looking for volunteers somewhere down the road.”

With the city facing this scenario in back-to-back years, it might be time for the city to allocate some funding in the future.

“It’s interesting when you go through a budget process and you’re trying to define a dollar figure for something like this situation knowing full well at the end of the day you’ll be reimbursed by the province and I think we need to have that conversation.”

The most notable fires burning right now are the Shovel Lake fire (31,500 hectares), Nadina Lake (25,000 hectares), Island Lake (13,000 hectares), Chutanli Lake (9,800 hectares), and Purvis Lake (1,450 hectares).