There is some good news for Juniper Ridge and Valleyview area residents in the City of Kamloops this morning, as the Juniper East Fire is officially out.
“As of today, I am happy to declare the fire is out,” Kamloops Fire Chief Steve Robinson said during an update this morning.
He says full internal operational debrief on the City’s response to the fire will take place at a later date.
“As we move to the next few days and weeks to look to see where and how we can improve our processes, I want to remind everyone that in this event that there were no injuries, there were no structures lost,” he added.
“Yes, we have some challenges, yes we will always strive to be better, but the overall goal was accomplished.”
The lightning-cased fire grew to 15 hectares in size, and threatened about 400 homes in the area. It led to brief tactical evacuations of some residents last Thursday night though all orders were lifted on Friday morning.
While the fire flared up again on Friday afternoon, no evacuation orders or alerts were required given the work of ground and air crews.
Dan Sutherland, the Emergency Program Coordinator in Kamloops, says he appreciates the efforts of residents who were told to leave their homes because of the fire.
“My sincere thank you for your quick action and your understanding during what must have been a very long anxious wait for you to return to your homes,” Sutherland added. “I would like to remind everyone to always be prepared should an evacuation come to you for any reason.”
Greg Wightman, the acting Civic Operations Director for Kamloops, says the wildfire shook the city and its staff who now turn towards recovering both operationally and emotionally.
“The image of a wildfire burning between two communities in our town is one that nobody will soon forget,” he said. “We stand here today knowing that that recovery will be a little bit easier because of the efforts of everyone that stands up here and the fact that no lives were lost, there were no injures and there were no structures lost.”
“That is ultimately our goal throughout these events.”
Juniper residents have been pushing for a second road in and out of their community after some reported long delays when trying to leave their houses with the fire burning close by.
On Tuesday last week, Kamloops City Council approved a new Juniper subdivision with a paved, gated road between Coldwater Drive and High Canada Place on Rose Hill which will only ever be opened for emergencies.
The gated road from Qu’Appelle Boulevard to the lower part of Rose Hill Road – which was used by some people to leave the area Thursday night – will eventually be paved over in the next decade, once that stretch becomes more developed.
Wightman says staff are aware of the issues that have been raised adding the Emergency Operations Centre and the City will be looking for ways to improve.
“We certainly heard the questions and some criticism that has come from the community and we welcome that. We are listening,” he added. “As was mentioned earlier, we will be doing a full operational debrief of everything that occurred at the emergency operations centre with the goal of being better and being more prepared.”
“We will take those comments and we will certainly consider them.”
As part of its commitments to moving forward, the City also says it will “immediately” begin planning for a second, permanent paved road in and out of Juniper but it’s not clear how long it would take to plan, fund, and build it.
In the meantime, CAO David Trawin says the City is reviewing the emergency access roads but did not say if it would grade or improve the emergency road in Juniper on Qu’Appelle Blvd.
Another recommendation Trawin made will be to ask city council to money so that Kamloops residents can be included on the Voyent Alert app so they can get notified in the event of a future emergency.
