The City of Kamloops says it was able to recruit 51 new volunteers to join the Emergency Support Services team last year.

Community and Emergency Supports Supervisor Natasha Hartson says they now have 129 active volunteers who are able to help support people who are forced to evacuate for any number of reasons.

“They have been instrumental in supporting the thousands of evacuees that we as Kamloops have hosted over the past years,” Hartson said during the Jan. 23 City Council meeting.

“In addition to the hours they spend during those larger scale events that we’re mostly aware of, there is smaller group of dedicated ESS volunteers that also are on call 24/7 and they support when they are requested to attend local smaller events, such as a house fire.”

Hartson told City Council that Kamloops ESS volunteers were kept busy in 2023.

“The teams responded to 13 Level 1 events. A level one is considered a small, localized event, such as a house fire,” she said. “They also responded to two Level 2 events, which were larger in nature between 220 to 500 evacuees. The McArthur Island reception centre was activated in May for three weeks to support 130 evacuees from the Village of Cache Creek as well as again in July to support evacuees for the Ross Moore Lake fire.

“Further to this, in August, they activated at a Level 3 reception centre at McArthur Island where they supported over 3,500 evacuees from various communities within the Interior. It remained open for five straight weeks. I think we closed for one day.”

It wasn’t just responding to calls that kept the team busy, Hartson said, noting training is an important component of the ESS program.

“Volunteers commit a number of hours towards training to be able to support the evacuees when they arrive,” Hartson said. “In 2023, we estimate that volunteers participated in over 12,763 hours of volunteerism. that is an under-representation because not everybody tracks their hours very well.”

Kamloops applying for provincial funding to recruit and train ESS volunteers

Hartson says the City is once again applying for $30,000 in provincial funding to help with ESS volunteer training and recruitment.

“Recruitment, training, mentorship, and recognition of Emergency Support Services volunteers is of critical importance to the program’s success,” Hartson said.

“If successful, the funds from this grant will be used to purchase supplies that support capacity building of the Kamloops Emergency Support Services team, training and exercises for Emergency Support Services responders, and volunteer recruitment and retention activities.”

Hartson said if the grant application is unsuccessful, the training won’t go ahead as planned. But she noted that all previous applications for money from the Union of British Columbia Municipalities’ Community Emergency Preparedness Fund have been successful, in part because of Kamloops’ status as a hub community for evacuees.

“I am pretty confident that we will be successful again,” Hartson said. “In the application, I mention a number of times how Kamloops is most likely the busiest ESS team in the province, so for us to not receive the funding would be quite surprising.”

“We do have some of our budget appropriated to training and activities of that sort so we could hobble by,” Hartson added. “As the program is predominantly volunteer based, I know the team would volunteer to continue to do what they are doing without some of these funding.”

“This would be additional ways in which we could support that program.”