BC’s Deputy Minister of Forests, Lands and Natural Resources says recent rainfall in the north half of the province is allowing wildfire resources to be moved around.

“We received some pretty appreciable rainfall in the north half of the province and what that’s allowing us now to do is to flow resources, wildfire fighting resources, our staff from the north of the province into the south,” said Rick Manwaring. “So, you’ll begin to see that. In fact, that’s already underway.”

Manwaring says the province is also looking to seeing if resources from other parts of Canada and from outside the country are available.

“We’ve put in a resource request just anticipating that we might need some more resources,” he said. “So resources like incident management teams we’re looking for a couple down the road four sustained action crews and additional resources from across Canada and we’re expecting to see that request fulfilled.”

Manwaring says the request with the federal government will initially focus on aircraft resources which will help to move personnel and assist Emergency Management BC should there be any challenging situations going forward.

“Part of our agreement with the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre is also our international agreements with partners. So they’re working right now and because they work on behalf of other provinces as well to try and see what resources are available from our traditional partners, for example like Australia and Mexico,” he added.

“And I will mention if we do have additional resources coming into B.C., we have rapid testing protocols in place for COVID to ensure the safety of everyone coming in and everyone here that we may use in the fire fighting effort.”