The City of Surrey is closing its reception centre for B.C. wildfire evacuees.
The Cloverdale Arena’s doors will shut to wildfire evacuees on Wednesday because of a dwindling flow of people who need to use the facility.
LISTEN: On the ground at the Cloverdale Arena wildfire evacuation centre
“We have to balance the needs of our community with the situation of course, so we are going to be ready and up and going with our arena operations,” City of Surrey spokesperson Carrie van Eaton said.
One of the key factors behind the timing was preparing the facility at 176th Street and 61 A Avenue for the coming sports season.
“The ice is already on its way in, so we’ll be good to go for hockey season,” van Eaton said.
Surrey started scaling back wildfire evacuee operations at the arena earlier this month, closing it on weekends and cutting it down to four operating hours on weekdays.
Overall, 4,400 people affected by wildfires registered for government help at the Cloverdale reception centre.
About 3,600 British Columbians remain on evacuation order across the province, with about 12,000 people still on evacuation alert.
At the peak of the fires, more than 40,000 people were forced from their homes at one time, including 24,000 from Williams Lake alone.
A provincial state of emergency has been extended until at least Sept. 1.
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