The focus for the Bald Range wildfire near Summerland, B.C., remains on protecting people and critical infrastructure, wildfire officials said at a live media briefing on Monday evening.
Graham Statt, director with the Regional Emergency Operations Centre said now is not the time for anyone to return to the affected communities, including Summerland, parts of Peachland and Faulder.
“We’re currently in the response phase of this situation,” he said.
“What we’re going to see, next is the re-entry phase. As things improve, as things get better — and they will get better — right now we are already providing temporary access requests for critical purposes for re-entry. So even though we’re in the response phase, there’s some permissions being given.”
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Statt said that includes providing farmers and ranchers with temporary access to their evacuated properties so they can feed and tend to their animals they have to leave behind.
He added that planning for re-entry to the communities is well underway.
“Crews are currently gathering reports of utility and other infrastructure across the community, and we will work to ensure affected areas are safe before we have any public return,” Statt said.
“Re-entry of residents will occur on a staged or phased process. More information will be shared as plans are finalized. But as we get into the re-entry phase, a really important part of that is going to be our ability to do rapid damage assessment.”
Statt added that right now they do not have access to the community to perform any damage assessments and they will be able to provide more information then.
“Of course, the final phase, which we’re all looking forward to, is the recovery phase,” he said.
“And that’s when we talk about rebuilds as well. And different parts of the community will be impacted in different ways, as you can expect.
“For some, the road to recovery is going to be a long one.”
This briefing came as thousands of people remained out of their homes due to the Bald Range wildfire, which sparked on Friday afternoon.
It is now mapped at more than 15,500 hectares.
The cause of the fire remains under investigation and RCMP said on Monday that officers are looking into any reports of suspicious activity.
my god guys good you even organize a pissup in a brewery
maybe the folks asking questions could talk into a micro phone, thats on
are we eventually going to cover the fire and what’s going on?