While over 200 RCMP personnel have been dispatched to help out with the wildfire situation in BC (less than half the number from last year), very few have been pulled out of Kelowna since fire season began in April.
“It’s not like we’re losing dozens or hundreds, or anything like that,” says BC RCMP Communications Director Dawn Roberts. “It’s more like a specialist, like a tactical team officer, or a traffic officer. The numbers may fluctuate as the fires continue, and if we see challenges in other areas.”
Roberts says Kelowna’s central location is advantageous, as personnel can be quickly sent to a nearby community if needed.
When the need arises for the RCMP to join in on the fight against wildfires, precautions are taken to ensure it doesn’t have a negative impact on detachments across BC.
“While officers are being deployed to affected regions, core policing duties in the communities they originate from will be maintained without interruption,” says RCMP Deputy Commissioner Brenda Butterworth-Carr. “To support these efforts the BC RCMP Division Emergency Operations Centre has been activated in order to coordinated resource requests, logistics, planning, and support services including safety and wellness of our employees.”
A provincial state of emergency went into effect as of Wednesday morning, which will allow resources to be shared efficiently on a federal, provincial, and local scale across BC.