What is being called a “massive” camp is being set up at the Quesnel airport this morning to support aircraft and bodies from other provinces that will be fighting the wildfires in the area.
Mayor Bob Simpson..
“We should see more helicopters and planes come in as well and the reason for that is our hit and miss nature of our road system just now. So we are busy working with them through our public works and our City Manager to make sure that they get everything that they need to tie into water, power, sewer and to connect to our local community with respect to food and other services that they are going to need.”
Simpson says some people will also be needed to set up the camp and manage it.
He says firefighters can then focus on getting out into the fires…
“This is great news for the community both with respect to getting more resources on the fires, particularly west of town and also great news for the community in terms of our local businesses being abel to engage directly into the fire support and making sure we’ve got the resources we need to fight these fires.”
Simpson says he has also been told that additional RCMP resources from other provinces are being brought in…
“We’re expecting up to a hundred RCMP officers to be coming into the area and that’s great news for us. Our local detachment is pretty stretched, we’ve got a lot of tired people out there manning baracades, it’ll be nice to get some fresh people on the ground and give them a bit of relief plus the additional resources we need for all of our emergency services personnel.”
Simpson says this boost to the economy will more than make up for any negative impact on Quesnel from the cancellation of Billy Barker Days.
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