One year later, recovery efforts for the 2017 wildfire season are still ongoing.
While speaking in Kamloops today, Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General Mike Farnworth says early in the season, the province took action.
“By allocating 100 million dollars in provincial investment to help British Columbian communities in need. And since that times we’ve been working to support affected communities ever since.”
Farnworth says one year later, recovery response is just as crucial.
“A lot of the issues after a disaster such as the fire season that we had last year don’t manifest themselves immediately. They occur over time, and that’s why it’s so important, the work that the Red Cross is doing.”
As far as the local response efforts, Vice President of Canadian Red Cross for BC and Yukon, Kimberley Nemrava says there’s been a lot of improvements since last year.
“We’ve seen that the floods have been smoother because we went through the fires last year, and we’ll continue to build on those relationships.”
To date, the Red Cross has spent or committed about 74 per cent of the BC Fires Appeal Fund, which is now at 162.2 million dollars.