Mounties in British Columbia are undergoing a “mass mobilization” of officers and resources as they assist firefighting crews and other officials with evacuations across the province.
Surrey houses the RCMP’s divisional emergency operations centre, which kicked into high gear on Thursday to coordinate the deployment of officers and logistical support for field teams, such as fuel for vehicles and personal protective equipment.
“A call will come in from any of the hot spots in the province when we’re stood up. They’ll tell me what their need is in the field and then our job will be to source those officers and get them moving,” Staff Sgt. Aaron Sproule explained Friday.
“When we’re moving between jurisdictions, we have to provide those resources … this is the place that coordinates all of that.”
More than 380 wildfires are burning across the province. Some 23,500 people have been put on evacuation alert and more than 4,500 have been forced to abandon homes under evacuation orders.
Surrey’s emergency operations centre was brought together in less than 48 hours, and now has dozens of staff, including experts in various fields brought in from across the province.
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“This is going to be a 24/7 operation until we’re no longer needed,” Sproule said.
“Every resource that is available that can assist us with that effort is being monopolized,” added Insp. Martin Guay, acting gold commander for the 2023 wildfire season.
“My role is to find the available resources regardless of the business line. I’m talking about federal policing, provincial and municipal, in order to send them to these wildfire locations to help out as much as we can.”
In West Kelowna, where the McDougall Creek fire has razed an unknown number of homes and buildings, Fire Chief Jason Brolund thanked the RCMP for their efforts.
“Police officers just kept coming and I don’t know where they all came from, but they knocked on every single door that I asked them to, and it was thousands of doors that were knocked on — it’s incredible,” he said in a Friday news conference.
RCMP Asst. Comm. John Brewer told Global News at least 28 Mounties had been dispatched to fire lines across the province from Vancouver Island and Metro Vancouver alone, and more were en route.
In addition to door-knocking, Brewer said the role of the Mounties is to secure evacuation routes for the Ministry of Transportation and Infrastructure to take over, and protect abandoned properties from criminal activity. During devastating wildfire season in 2017, 2018 and 2020, he added, there were little to no instances of documented looting or break-ins at evacuated properties and businesses.
According to the B.C. RCMP, regular policing has not been compromised in communities where officers have been redeployed to the fire lines.
“The RCMP will only leave an evacuated area in the event continued wildfire activity threatens officer safety, but only to pull back to re-establish a new secure zone. Once it’s safe to do so, our officers will return to maintain security,” reads a Friday afternoon news release from the B.C. RCMP.
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