The BC Wildfire Service is recruiting hundreds of new firefighters to its crews across the province this year.

Kamloops Fire Zone Wildfire Officer Hugh Murdoch says it comes as initial attack crews will now consist of four people instead of three, while some unit crews will be composed of 22 people instead of 20.

“This year, in part because of that bump up from three to four-person attack crews, two more people on the unit crews, and people being promoted upward, we will hire more than 400 new firefighters, probably well over 400.”

Murdoch also told a TNRD Committee of the Whole meeting that the Wildfire Service has created several new full-time jobs and has switched some seasonal jobs to become year-round positions.

“That is the most welcome investment from my perspective, and hopefully, it’s shared in the room. But growing pains have their challenges also, so take into account that we often have high turnover within our organization in our crews,” he said.

“Not long ago, I was heavily involved with provincial recruiting and running new recruitment camps where we would have close to almost 200 new recruits a year hired in the province. The number crept up to 225, and it stayed in that area for a while.”

Meanwhile, Murdoch says that the significant increase in firefighters may cause a learning curve. “That is quite significant from my perspective, and I think it will be for the public as well. That is 400 people new to their job and 400 people that will often have supervision that is new to their job.”

“As much as we train and simulate first about our work, absolutely nothing beats doing the work, just experiencing the reality of challenges that can be placed on any fire; so that is something that we’re quite cognizant of, and we’ll be trying to support our crews more than ever.”

While recruitment efforts are a challenge across the province, the situation is not as dire in southern BC as it is in northern BC.

“When I say north, I am looking at the province as a whole, but we have challenges with recruitment due to remoteness, weather, and housing costs.”

Due to that, Murdoch says different parts of the province are applying different strategies to address the issue.