The City of Williams Lake Emergency Operations Centre and the City of Williams Lake Emergency Support Services team were recognized for their efforts during the 2017 wildfire season.
Emergency Management BC Regional Manager, Viv Fox presented plaques Tuesday afternoon to CAO Milo MacDonald and ESS Director, Dave Dickson.
“It’s a special day,” Dickson said.
“It’s just a testament to the amazing volunteers that we have in Williams Lake because without the volunteers we wouldn’t have been so successful in running a seamless wildfire season in 2017.”
Dickson says that close to 200 volunteers helped with emergency support services.
“This is theirs, not mine,” he said.
“It’s a community award and we’re grateful for it. Hopefully moving forward we’re just a better-equipped team.”
The ESS according to Dickson is more than capable of dealing with such a situation again. He says that some volunteers returned once again for the 2018 season, and will be completing training in the next two weeks at the Williams Lake Fire Hall thanks to a government grant.
“We’re fortunate,” he says.
“We have a great group of people in town that when the time is due they step up and we become very successful.”
MacDonald said he was proud of their team and of Willams Lake.
“This was obviously a group accomplishment,” MacDonald said.
“We’ve made some investment in some training, and we’ve got all kinds of grant approvals that have been given to us so we’ve made investment in technology at the EOC and our new fire chief has a ton of experience doing exactly that kind of planning.”
“So I feel like we’re in as good as a position as we possibly could be and we’re waiting for more information about our Community Wildfire Protection Plan; as that becomes more and more complete that will add an umbrella of protection for the community as well.”
Something going on in the Cariboo you think people should know about?
Send us a news tip by emailing [email protected].
