Natural disasters on the scale of the massive wildfires and flooding the province has endured over the last 18 months may become the "new normal," Premier John Horgan warned Tuesday but added steps will be taken to lessen the impact in the years ahead.
Accompanied by federal defence minister Harjit Sajjan, Horgan made a stop in Prince George prior to traveling west to get a bird's eye view of the forest fires largely behind the evacuation of nearly 2,700 people to this city.
Fielding questions from both provincial and local media, Horgan said the government was about halfway through implementing recommendations raised in response to the forest fires and flooding that struck B.C. in 2017 when this most recent wave of blazes erupted.
"We had to put the report down and get to work to deal with this year's fires, so we need to be ready to go, when the rains come, to prepare for next year," he said while standing outside the province's regional emergency operations centre at the corner of Westwood Drive and Ferry Avenue.
Horgan said he did not want to blame anyone but over the decades, "we have not been cleaning our forests. There is too much fuel left behind, we need to address that."
To that end, Horgan made note of calls to have more local people, notably from area First Nations, trained and on the ground to do the work.
"But we went from flood to fire to flood and again to fire and 13 months in office and we've had two states of emergency and that's unprecedented and that speaks to the changing environment that we live in and the ravages of climate change that we need to prepare for year after year," Horgan said.
Sajjan played up Ottawa's contribution to fighting the fires covering the province. He said about 250 military personnel have been deployed to relieve firefighters in the Okanagan and another 50 assigned to flying resources around B.C.
He also said the prime minister is convening an ad hoc committee on wildfires, "and this will help us as a federal government provide and coordinate the resources from all departments to the provincial government."
Horgan and Sajjan were flanked by Carrier Sekani Tribal Council chief Terry Teegee, Tl'azt'en Nation Grand Chief Ed John, Cariboo-Prince George MP Todd Doherty and Prince George Mayor Lyn Hall as they met with media.
A woman, identified as Carmen, also met with Horgan behind closed doors.
Calling it a "tragic story," Horgan said she told him her father's home went up in flames "on an alert, not an order."
He said it was the "lack of understanding of what people are supposed to do that she brought to our attention" and that he had raised those issues with Emergency Management Services B.C.
He went on to urge people to do as officials ask, particularly when an evacuation order is invoked.
"We're working as diligently as we can to protect the public but when an evacuation order has been issued people have to understand that they need to respect that, not just for themselves but for their neighbours and the firefighters that are at risk every day going out to try and keep us safe.
"And if people stay at home, it compromises the ability to deliver water, it compromises the ability of firefighters to do their jobs. Carmen certainly understands that - I'm going to be speaking to her again, she has a lot of information that will be valuable to me helping forming policy going forward."
Based on what B.C. Wildfire Services has told city officials about "where the fires are, the trajectory of the fires, what they look like and where they're moving," Hall said the city appears safe from being struck by wildfire.
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