 My name is Bowen Ma, Minister of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness. Honored to be joining you here today from the territories of the Musqueam, the Squamish and the Tsleil-Waututh peoples. Yesterday, Premier Ebi, Minister Rousden and I had an opportunity to meet with emergency personnel, leadership, firefighters and volunteers and to come with us to Suwotmek, Kelowna, West Kelowna. And I stand with a deep and heavy heart, deeply aware of the pain and hardship that so many people are facing in this region. Homes that held cherished memories, treasured possessions and a sense of security have been lost. Others are still waiting for news. I understand that no words can truly encapsulate the emotions that many of you are feeling. People are in shock and disbelief and are enduring an overwhelming sense of grief and loss. The stories are devastating, but also show the strength of British Columbians. I know of volunteers in West Kelowna and Kelowna who continue to provide support services to their neighbors and communities even while they themselves were on evacuation order and waiting to hear if their homes have survived. It is that determination and resolve that will get us through these incredibly challenging times together. As of this morning, more than 25,000 people are on evacuation order and 37,000 people are on evacuation alert. That is 25,000 people who have been forced out of their home due to wildfire and 37,000 more people who must be prepared to leave their homes at a moment's notice. As I shared yesterday, the emergency order that we put in place on Saturday restricting travel to a number of communities in the Okanagan has had the effect that we required. Thousands of hotel rooms were made available for people who were forced from their homes as well as the many firefighters and emergency crews that required housing. I want to express my deepest gratitude to everyone who cancelled their plans to travel as well as to our partners in the tourism industry for their support and for their understanding. Because the desired effect has been achieved, we have lifted travel restrictions for the purposes of staying in temporary accommodation in Kelowna, Kamloops, Oliver, Soyuz, Penticton and Vernon effective today. However, the order does remain in West Kelowna. Working with our local government and First Nation partners, we continue to place people into the accommodations that are now available. And we are also block booking additional available rooms in the event that they are needed. I know that many communities in the interior are looking forward to welcoming, responsibly recreating tourists again. But I ask that the travelling public continue to be thoughtful about where they go. In addition to West Kelowna, some heavily impacted communities like Lake Country and the Shoe Shop are indicating that now is not the time to visit them. Please respect their wishes. Know before you go and be prepared. Have emergency provisions with you and monitor information on the BC Wildfire Service website, Emergency Info BC and Drive BC. There is a tremendous effort underway to ensure that everyone who needs emergency support services has access to them given the extremely large number of evacuees. I want to deeply thank our local partners, local governments, regional districts and First Nations for the role that they play in managing the on the ground operations of these reception centres. At the same time, I know that some people have had to endure wait times at reception centres. These are some of the most stressful moments of a people's life. And having to wait at reception centres or wait for help adds to that stress. I want to recognize people's frustration and thank them for their patience as volunteers diligently navigate through this monumental task. We continue to take action working with the local governments to speed up processing times and get to everyone. Including by engaging the Service BC Call Centre to provide support and initiating immediate transfer of evacuees from the queue into suitable lodging. The more than 10,000 people registered for emergency support services in relation to the McDougal Creek Fire alone, either through a reception centre or through our online system, are being supported by 13 in-person and virtual reception centres around the province. And as of this morning, everyone in our system, in Lake Country, West Kelowna, Kelowna West Bank and West Bank First Nation has been contacted one way or another. Accommodation in hotels is available, so if someone out there is having difficulty getting through and still needs accommodation, please call 1-800-387-4258. Our service providers are working around the clock to ensure that everyone has access to the support that they need. And I urge everyone in fire affected areas to proactively pre-register with emergency support services online at ESS.gov.bc.ca. Over the last several days, the situation has stabilized in some areas. However, it could change and there are other areas that remain very active. For example, last night, Lytton First Nation issued evacuation orders as a result of the Kukupi Creek wildfire. I want to acknowledge the stress that that causes for a community, especially a community like Lytton First Nation, who has already been through so much. It's a reminder that we must be agile in case our circumstances change. While we have been lucky to receive some rain in some places, we are still in a hazardous situation for wildfires throughout British Columbia. And we will continue to assess the situation, work with local governments and First Nations, and adapt our responses needed. I recognize that it is a remarkably difficult time for people under an evacuation order. It is difficult to leave behind your home and everything that you love. But evacuation orders must be followed. They are not suggestions, they are the law. When unauthorized people are in evacuation areas, it escalates the danger involved for everyone. It also limits the kind of wildfire fighting tactics that the BC Wildfire Service can deploy. And it redirects critical resources away from the wildfire fight itself into searching for moving equipment, moved equipment, redoing work that's already been done to set up structural protection, or just trying to manage an unpredictable situation made even more unpredictable by well-meaning but uncoordinated firefighting efforts. I know that some people want to stay and fight. I understand that. But it is also my duty to be clear about the risks to people and emergency crews. This has become an increasingly divisive issue within the community and outside. And let me be clear, our collective fight is with the wildfire. But in order to do this, our efforts need to be united. We need to work together, not against each other. BC Wildfire Service personnel are actively working to open up a dialogue with those behind the lines who are refusing to leave, to try to create an understanding of the seriousness of the situation. And as they've done in the past, in other communities, BC Wildfire Service is reaching out proactive. And as they've done in the past, in other communities, the BC Wildfire Service is reaching out to skilled, experienced people in the shoe shop to try and incorporate them into their work. We have to be working together on this, though. People can't be doing their own thing. We can't have equipment that's been staged for firefighters being moved, so it's not there when it's needed. That puts the whole unified strategy at risk, and it puts people and their homes at risk. We have a shared challenge we're trying to fight, and that is the wildfire. And we fight it by working together. But I want to be clear that we're talking about skilled, experienced people in this case. My message to British Columbians is that evacuation orders must be followed. Fires are unpredictable, and they move fast. Areas under evacuation order are not safe places, and when you are asked to leave, you must leave immediately. I also want to reassure people in the North Shoe Shop that supplies are being delivered. Deliveries of food and fuel have been made to Magna Bay, Anglemont, and Seymour Arm. As part of an advanced planning effort, we secured and graded a Forest Service Road to ensure that people had access in and out of their community in event of an evacuation order. And we are organizing piloted trips through the back road to support people getting to where they need to go. And waterways are also being used when they are safe to do so in coordination with emergency management personnel. Right now, a lot of British Columbians have been asking how they can help. And I've seen firsthand the remarkable outpouring of support from food banks, community organizations, and non-governmental organizations. The Canadian Red Cross and the United Way British Columbia are among several organizations that have joined this effort. While much appreciated, the donation of items like furniture, clothing, and other, I guess, I'll just say that again because, pardon me, give me a second. Been talking a lot over the last few days. Thank you for your patience. While much appreciated, the donation of items like clothing and furniture can be a logistical challenge for teams that are already under immense pressure to take care of people. If you would like to help, I'm asking you to make a monetary donation to trusted organizations such as the United Way of British Columbia, Canadian Red Cross, BC SPCA, or food banks BC. I want to thank you again to everyone who canceled their plans over the last several days. Your help made a monumental difference in our ability to ensure that people who were evacuated and first and emergency responders had a place to stay. I also want to give a huge thank you to all search and rescue volunteers who have been assisting with evacuations. We are all in this together. We will continue to get through this together. Continue to please stay calm, be alert, and be prepared. Thank you so much. I'd like to turn it over to Minister Alston. Thanks very much, Minister Ma. Good afternoon. I'm Bruce Ralston, Minister of Forests. I'm honored to be here on the territory of the Muscovines, Squamish, and Slavertooth people. As Minister Ma, you heard her describe, yesterday was an emotionally moving day. It was an opportunity to see firsthand the devastation that has impacted people and communities, as well as the landscape. I also want to acknowledge I'm very well aware that this has been people's reality for the last week, that everyone impacted with this 24-7. And what we witnessed is merely a snapshot of what life has been for people and families for some time. And speaking with people at evacuation centers, their stories were harrowing, but also inspiring. I spoke with a man who has a tourism business that involves taking people out on boats on the lake. His business is in abeyance at the moment, but he was there as a volunteer in the Kelowna Emergency Response Centre, trying to help out, notwithstanding his own personal troubles. And I also chatted with the Fire Chief of West Kelowna who has recounted this story. But in a very modest and I would say almost stereotypical Canadian way, he said really it was all about the other people, the four or five people that supported him and worked with him and discounted any claim to being a hero, and I thought that was particularly inspiring. So we also met with emergency personnel, leadership, firefighters and volunteers to thank them for their incredible ongoing efforts. Let me offer my thanks as well, my sincere gratitude and appreciation to everyone who has worked so diligently, so such long hours to help keep people safe. And express once again my support for the remarkable work that everyone at the BC Wildfire Service is doing. And that's the full team, those in the field, but also those in the centers who support those in the field. They work the same hours and every bit as hard, along with indigenous firefighters, contractors and municipal firefighters. I think we can all understand and appreciate just how dangerous and demanding firefighting is, and we understand the sacrifices you're making. We're confident that you're giving it everything you've got. And I'm also so relieved and thankful to hear that, as of yet, no lives have been reported lost in the Central Okanagan fires. Protecting people is always our first priority. There are currently 376 wildfires burning across British Columbia, 14 of those are fires of note. We continue to keep our fire resourcing as high as possible in those affected areas. And I have been meeting with people to talk our way through the response on the ground. We now have more than 3,500 personnel directly engaged in wildfire responses across the province. I want to emphasize that these are the crews who are working on the landscape on the fire line and may not be readily visible to people in communities. But they are taking the actions necessary needed on the fire to keep people and communities safe. They have been joined recently by 652 firefighters from 108 municipal fire departments from around British Columbia. And that is a really impressive collective effort on a part of those departments who are providing additional support in structural defense, that's buildings. Today we also welcome 100 additional Mexican firefighters who will arrive in British Columbia. The following days, South African and Australian personnel will arrive to assist in local firefighting efforts. Thankfully, yesterday we saw a tropical storm. Hillary bring a bit of much-needed rain to some parts of British Columbia, which means more favorable conditions for firefighting. In the southern interior, the coming days are also more likely to see more rain and cooler temperatures. While it's not as much as rain as we want, I know that our crews in these areas are preparing to take advantage of every bit of rain we can. Wildfire smoke conditions and visibility has significantly improved over the past 24 hours at the gross complex of wildfires in the Okanagan Valley. Air operations are resuming in the fire area after playing a limited role due to poor visibility in recent days. If it's very, very smoky, planes can fly. There are presently 17 helicopters assigned to bucketing and fire management at the McDougal Creek wildfire at West Kelowna, the Walry Lake wildfire, and the Clark Creek wildfire. Crews are also eager to resume air operations and other fires as soon as conditions allow. With this, I must also want to remind people once again to allow these helicopters the room they need to do their work. Drones are a significant hazard to our fire crews who are fighting fires, and it is illegal to fly them in fire areas. Finally, some of the fires we've been talking about have been more stable in recent days. We still have some very active fires in British Columbia near communities. I want to echo Minister Ma's comments about the Kukipi Creek fire near Boston Bar. An incident management team has taken command of that wildfire as of Monday. Unfortunately, the rain that some parts of British Columbia are seeing didn't come into the Fraser Canyon, and it is still very active further north. Crews continue to work hard to protect vital infrastructure, including transmission lines, railways and Highway 1, along with working to limit growth on the south and eastern portions of the fire. So while the shift in weather will hopefully give our wildfire fighters and fire fighters in the southern interior a bit of a reprieve, we still ask everyone throughout British Columbia to remain prepared. Despite the fact that wildfires dominated much of our attention in the last week, we are still experiencing a very serious drought, and so much of the landscape is still very, very dry, leaving many of parts of the province at risk of fires. I'm also urging everyone to continue to check on road closures from on the DriveBC app and report wildfires using the BC Wildfire Service or by calling STAR-5555 from the cell phone. This information that you provide may be critical to BC Wildfire Service operations. Your response in reporting a fire may be the first indication that the service has a fire and we're able to respond just that much faster because you have taken the effort to report it. So thank you when you do that. Thank you. I'll now turn it back to Minister Mal. Thank you so much. We will now be able to take some questions. In addition to Mr. Ralston and myself, we have Cliff Chapman, Director of BC Wildfire Service or Director of Wildfire Operations with BC Wildfire Service, Peter Brock, Executive Director of Regional Operations with Emergency Management Climate Readiness, as well as Chrissy Oliver, Executive Director of Provincial Response Programs of EMCR online to answer questions. We are now open. We are now open for the questions. For media in the room, please line up at the microphone. I believe we don't have any media questions in the room. And for anyone online, remember to use STAR-1 to get on the queue and please make sure to provide your full name and outlet. Media will be limited to one question and one follow-up. We have Mara Bains from CBC. Thank you. This question is for Minister Ma. In terms of trying to work with some of the folks out there in the shoe shop to fight fires, how are you going to open those lines of communication given that there's just so much frustration out there? And also, will there be any compensation offered to those folks if they work together with provincial firefighters? Back in 2015 in Rock Creek, the province compensated a group of residents who fought fires to protect their own property. So, you know, just wondering about how you're going to open those lines of communication and also if some of these people in the shoe shop will be offered compensation as well. I'll start off on the question. I'll give Minister Ralston a chance to see if he has anything to add and we'll also check in with Cliff Chapman on it as well. First off, BC Wildfire Service does already willingly work with contractors right across the province. We have support staff, we have contractors from all sorts of industries that come with equipment, with training, with experience. The key here is that those wildfire fighting efforts have to be coordinated under the unified command. BC Wildfire Service works with meteorologists and experts to project what is happening on the wildfire and where it will go, where the defence lines need to be set up, what critical structures need to be protected at any given time, and they have a plan. And part of the challenge of having people who I believe are trying to do good things but are uncoordinated with a centralized effort is that they can disrupt that plan, cause wildfire fighters the need to go searching for equipment that they've staged, go redo work that they've already done before. It also reduces the kind of tactics that the BC Wildfire Service can actively implement in those areas. For example, the BC Wildfire Service cannot use a direct aircraft attack, or use aircraft to do a direct attack on wildfires if they know that there are civilians in the area. They also cannot execute back burns if they know that there are people who are in those areas that they are attempting to back burn. So it is incredibly important that these efforts be coordinated and they already do work with contractors and additional people all over. And when they do use and work with these contractors, they are compensated for that work, but it has to be done under the unified command. The Minister of Law has covered very important points. I would say just my experience in being briefed by the BC Wildfire Service is that in any fire action, there's a lot of planning that goes into that, and much of that is not visible, and I was not aware of that myself until I was given these briefs. So planning, pre-planning is very important. And in order to be sure that civilians are not impacted, they need to be out of the area. So BC Wildfire Service works proactively to reach out to people with skills, with equipment to join the effort, but it's very important that that be part of a unified team approach in order that the firefighting can be the most effective. It can, it should be and will be. So that effort is really important. I don't know, Cliff may, as the Director of Operations, may have some further comments. Thank you, Minister Ma and Minister Ralston. I agree with what you guys have said. I just want to highlight an example on the same complex, and we have had great success working in the Nutsford community just outside of Kamloops and bringing in some of the locals in and around that area to support us on the Rossmore Lakefire. And so this isn't something new. I want to echo what Minister Ma said, is we do want to ensure from a safety perspective and from the tactics that we have on the ground that we are working in a unified way. And so those are the conversations that we started last night. We're going to continue today to see if we can come to an understanding of what that's going to look like to work together to try to protect the areas in the North Shoe Swap and beyond as that fire continues to move forward. So we are interested in this conversation of working together. But again, I want to stress it has to be done in a safe and coordinated way. And we have seen examples of that in BC over the years and even this year with the Nutsford example, we had the community of Southside really step into the response effort in 2018. And we continue to open up this opportunity for communities to work with us as we work to protect communities, infrastructure and really, you know, get that fire outside of the area where it has the threat to the community. The area where it has the threat to the community. Next question. Do you have a follow up? Yes, I do. So my second question is around communications in the shoe shop. Residents there say the evacuation notices from the district came too late that the fire was already approaching very quickly. Is there any thought to helping regional districts that don't have a lot of resources so they can get the word out in a more timely way? Is there a possibility of maybe a more unified provincial kind of system? Or helping smaller regional districts with communications during a time that they're under wildfire? Yeah, absolutely. EMCR and BC Wildfire Service, all of our emergency management partners, we work very closely with the local government to support them in all of their needs, including communication needs as well. For instance, local governments, regional districts and First Nations can request that a broadcast intrusive alert be sent out on their behalf. So the BI alerts are the ones that get sent directly to your cell phones, to the radio, to television. That being said, every community is different and in many of these remote areas, cell phone reception is spotty. It is something obviously that our government is working on with our connectivity work to try to connect all of BC with high speed internet and cell phone service and so forth. But that work is incomplete and so there are some areas where connection is spotty and a BI intrusive alert might not be the best way. And in those cases where action has to be taken very quickly in terms of evacuations, RCMP, certain rescue volunteers and other responders will physically go door to door to evacuate people. With that, maybe I'm just going to check to see if Cliff or Peter have anything else that they wanted to offer on that. Next week. Next week. Next week. Next, we have Keith Baldry from Global News. After the clonal wildfires about 20 years ago, highlighted thousands of square kilometers that needed wildfire fuel clearing before the season began. But experts say only a small percentage of that has been done over the years. Can you talk about how much was done before this season and was enough done and why more wildfire risk reduction treatments weren't accomplished in the last number of years? Thanks very much. The 2003 report, I think, if memory serves me correctly, was done by former Premier Gary Filman from Manitoba. Yes, there is a very well-developed program, Firesmart, in some parts of the province. It's been taken up very substantially. What that involves is basically work to remove the fuel, potential fuel from a fire in what are called the jargon term as interface areas. That's where houses and subdivisions and buildings join the forest, and that's the areas that are typically most at risk. So the idea is to in advance pay for crews to remove that. It can be on public land and on private land. Those programs are well-developed. The uptake has probably not been what we asked for. Although we did hear earlier in the season about the Mount Knox fire in Kelowna, the Chief Administrative Officer of Kelowna complimented our department, the Ministry of Forestry, on the impact that the Firesmart program had had in removing fuel, and he said it was a significant factor in being able to bring that fire under control very quickly. I expect that this will be the subject of discussion at the Union of BC Municipalities Convention in a couple of weeks, and encouragement will be given to municipalities. The funding is there. It just simply, I think, hasn't been taken up. I think people sometimes think that these are not essential programs, these are make work programs. They're the very opposite of that. They can be the difference between successfully extinguishing a fire and seeing a fire go on to profoundly damage a community. So we are strong proponents, I know Minister Moise as well, of the Firesmart program. And we expect to see and encourage a significant uptake of the program beyond what we've seen already. And as I say, I want to compliment those landowners, those cities that have participated and encourage others to, given the results that are possible in terms of prevention, take up the program as well. Thank you. Do you have any follow-ups? Yes, thanks for the correction, Minister. You're right, it was Geary Philman, not George Ebony, came later. Further to that line of questioning, given that climate change has sort of changed the face of wildfires every year, they're becoming more off or at least more acreage. They're more ferocious, it seems, and they're occurring sometimes in places we don't normally associate with wildfires. Given that, is there any thought to expanding this sort of Firesmart program to communities that don't normally associate with wildfires? And by that I'm talking about sort of the outer ring of Metro Vancouver, parts of South Vancouver Island, which are more urban or suburban areas. Should they not have resources as well as when it comes to training and pre-active measures before the wildfire season begins in their communities, again, not normally associated with fires? Thank you for the question. There's no doubt that the prospects for wildfires and seasons to come are, I think, everyone is rightly speculating that they will be more intense, more prolonged, and as you say, enter areas where they traditionally have not been expected. The program is a province-wide program and the opportunity to join, I think that's a reasonable suggestion. It is also a budgetary question, which we're in the process of preparing the budget for next year, coming forward in February. So I think that's one of the considerations that may well be considered in the budget. I will also obviously take the advice of Minister Ma and her experts in the emergency management and my team at BC Wildfire Service to see how the program might best be shaped to protect British Columbians, and that is our first priority. Next question will be from Dirk Meissner from Canadian Press. Hi, I think this question is for Cliff Chapman, and I'm wondering if firefighters are at all impacted by criticisms people have of some of the tactics you've used to fight the fires, and also if at all some of these conspiracy theories of how these fires started, if that at all impacted firefighters? Go ahead, Cliff. I suppose I would say that that question really hits me and I think our organization in a really, in a big way. The easiest way I can answer that is absolutely it has an impact on our firefighters on the ground. As ministers have discussed, our people are provincial in nature. They don't live in these areas, some of them do, but we bring them from all over the province. They have families. They have their own homes. They have their own, in some cases, they have also been under evacuation and evacuation alerts and orders. And so when they see and they turn on their phones at the end of a 14 hour shift and they see negative media and or negative social media posts about what they had done that day, or what they have been doing for the course of the last three months, it has a profound impact on them. We continue to work with our own organization around making sure they have the supports that they need, obviously from this standpoint, but also just from the impacts of seeing the devastating nature of these wildfires this year. Our organization in the past, probably seven years ago and beyond, we were mostly in the back country of BC. What we've seen in the last seven years outside of the 2003 and 2010 fire seasons. We're seeing that increase in our presence in the interface where the forest meets community. And we are doing everything that we can to try to protect those homes we're doing everything that we can to try to make sure that people can get home as fast as they can and so it has a big impact on our staff and again I want to. And I do want to say the messaging to our staff at our fire camps the the messages we receive here at in Kamloops at our headquarters have actually for the most part have actually been overwhelmingly positive and I want to say that that also has a profound impact on our human our humans that are out there 16 hours a day 14 days at a time with little rest in between and then doing it again. I have seen that sort of emotional reaction as our staff read the thank you notes from communities read the thank you notes from different parts of BC, even some industry members in BC saying thank you for your effort in protecting whatever it happens to be so so yes it has a negative impact when they see some of the conspiracies and some of the questioning I think we recognize that there are questions that we need to answer and we're doing our best to fill that information for all of BC. But when when things get out there on social media in particular it can have a negative impact on our people and I encourage everyone to continue to just show support to those that you see in the field, in particular the reds and blues and those that are working for us with municipal departments and our contract crews. It means the world to them it means the world to our organization so thank you very much for that question. Do you have a follow up. Sure. I think this one for our minister mall. I'm wondering if she or the government has any reaction to the statement put out yesterday by the BC United caucus that the government is holding up by getting supplies into the North North shoo shop area. So I want to be very clear that for those communities that are not under evacuation order that are not but are cut off by fires supply runs are happening. They are being supplied. We are we have a detour route in place. It was graded as part of the pre planning work so that we're able to restock stores. Piloted convoys are being arranged as well when for when they're safe to allow members of the community to go out to get prescription filled and other specific needs met. We're using the waterways when it is safe, but the supply runs have to be coordinated. There's a lot of activity in the area we cannot get in the way of the wildfire fighting efforts. Next we have Katie de Rosa from Vancouver sun. Hi there. I'm just wondering, I mean, guys, the, you know, the tensions around individual issues up saying, you know, that they're not seeing the resources that they thought they should like is this a larger issue of more resources that are needed in BC, you know, we have been relying on the military and other resources that are needed. So there's consideration there. There have been calls for a national FEMA type agency that could have highly trained individuals that could scoop in where they are needed. So do we need more resources to fight fires as they get worse in the future? Certainly, our province has been incredibly grateful for the out of province and international support that we have been receiving throughout the wildfire season and we do have international resources here. We have been working with the federal government to have the Canadian Armed Forces sent back to British Columbia to bolster those resources. We know that there is a need to surge up on firefighting resources at the peak and in turn we support other jurisdictions when they require more firefighting resources when we're able to provide them as well. So there is a lot of coordination and collaboration happening and you're right, we are currently using more firefighting resources than we would have on our own and that's why those international partnerships are significant. But on the shoe shop region itself, significant resources have been deployed there and I think I'll probably turn it over to Cliff to speak a little bit more to the kind of resources that we have there. But I want to acknowledge that wildfire fighting isn't always as visible as fighting a structural fire. Oftentimes we have resources in the bush or they're preparing or they're staging equipment, they're using tactics that are different from what are seen when inside the actual neighbourhoods themselves and inside the structures. And so there's a lot of people working out there, extremely hard, but they might not be visible from where people might be. So maybe Cliff you can elaborate on that and probably say what I said more articulately, quite frankly. I think you actually hit it really well in terms of where our staff are located, right? I think if you think about the Adams Lake fire itself, it's 40,000 hectares. So it has a significant perimeter on it that we are actively using heavy equipment and our ground resources so that that fire doesn't make another run as it has in the last, as we saw last week on Thursday and Friday, trying to secure the control lines on a 40,000 hectare takes a significant person power, both heavy equipment and ground resources. I assure you our resources are out there they are out there every day they are out there for every hour of the day and night continuing to push in guard continuing to work to try to secure the flanks or the perimeter of that fire. So you may not see them all the time or you may not see hundreds of them congregated within one certain area but they are out there. It's worth noting on the Adams Lake complex. There are almost 600 resources that have come to the Adams Lake complex that are actively engaged on the fires in that complex. So we do have a significant resource front on that fire. I think in terms of additional resourcing, you know, this time this year in BC was really one of the first times that we ordered resources from our agencies across Canada and the world before we saw the need to have them in BC. So we put in our request this is way back into May and June. And really we haven't stopped asking for additional resources sort of just to continue to supplement what we're losing if we lose 200 trying to replace those 200 and so doing that in preparedness rather than waiting for response has allowed us to have more resources in BC than we would have normally had and the ability to search to some of these fires but again I just want to stress. When you have a 40,000 hectare fire which is only one of a half dozen fires that are 10 to 30 pushing 40,000 hectares there is a lot of perimeter out there that we are actively working to put guards around and trying to secure that perimeter so that we can start to see the lifting of evacuation orders and alert to start to get people home. So we are active and we're active 24 seven or seven. Next we have Rob Buffham from CTV Vancouver Island. Oh hi thanks for taking my question and it's for Minister Ma. I'm just wondering we've heard about these long waits and lineups of evacuees at the center fishing the first days after this all started. What could or should have been done to address that issue so the lineups weren't as big. Yeah so first off I want to acknowledge the Herculean efforts of the local authorities that we partner with to deliver emergency support services. The the center in West Kelowna is operated by the central Okanagan regional district and we've been incredibly grateful for all of their efforts and the efforts of their volunteers. That being said they are processing an enormous number of evacuees a number that we have we don't normally get the kind of numbers that we saw over the last several days over 30,000 on order within a matter of 24 hours. And so we were able to work closely with them to try to improve processes on the fly, open up evacuation centers in other areas of the region and supplement them through the provision of virtual supports from other evacuation centers across the province. Working with them to understand where the challenges were in processing we engage service BC's call center to supplement all the efforts of the volunteers and the staff on the ground. We're able to call through 10,000 people registered in the evacuee registration assistance program who are currently being supported by 13 evacuation centers both in person and virtually across the province. We've been fast tracking processes behind the scenes and we're working closely with central Okanagan regional district right now to expand the physical space that they have there. I will say that with the changing climate what we are seeing is that the extreme weather events are happening more and more frequently and they're happening right around around the year. It used to be that communities would see an emergency situation once in a while and they would gear up on volunteers and gear up on staff and set up an evacuation center on the fly and that's how we do it still right now. But I think there's a lot of, there certainly is a lot of thinking, a lot of conversation about where we head from here given that we're seeing these kinds of events not just every year but every single season. I do and it relates to the last portion of your answer there. Premier Evie this morning in a radio interview said, you know, something that should be given serious thought was the idea of having a year round emergency response team the same way wildfire service functions year round, not just during fire season. And he did reference the increasing number of natural disasters we're seeing. What are your views on that? Do you think we will see an emergency response team set up that functions a year round to anticipate these kind of emergencies? I think the Premier has been very astute in recognizing the realities of climate change and the climate impacts that have already hit here in British Columbia. And one of the first steps he took as Premier was to create this ministry, the Ministry of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness. We're about eight or nine months old now and it was created out of the recognition that the climate crisis is here. And with that we're seeing more extreme weather events closer together with greater frequency. Communities are being hit by emergencies while they are still struggling to recover from previous emergencies. The burden on these communities and on the people of British Columbia is growing exponentially. And so in addition to doing the work that we have to do to drive down the greenhouse gas emissions that create this, the climate crisis in the first place, not just here in British Columbia and across Canada, but all over the world. We also have to be prepared for the impacts of climate change that are already here. And so that means being more prepared at all levels of government for the emergencies that are coming, putting more effort and more resources into mitigating the impacts of climate change. And of course being better at responding to and recovering from them. So we have time for one more reporter and the final question goes to Cara Junos from CD News. How would you say this wildfire seems of course your ministry to change the approach to wildfire cool management, forest management and also empowering residents to make their communities more fire resistant? Thank you. That's an excellent question. One of the steps we took in the last budget cycle was to take the core of BC wildfire service and expand it. There was always a small core that worked throughout the year, but we've expanded that significantly in order to have more people available for the events preparation work. But what I think some commentators have pointed out, and I think this is a fair insight, is that the work on fire prevention is sometimes much smaller than the work on the firefighting. And so in conjunction with Minister Ma's new ministry, which it has as its mandate dealing with the response to climate change, we will be continuing to develop programs that are focused on prevention in advance of fire. So for example, one of the areas where people have begun to express some interest and there will be some change will be in the building code. How do we make buildings more resilient to the prospect of fire? The fire smart program that we've spoken of does already exist, but how do we expand that? And just general public awareness of what the prospects for fire might be in the future and how it's important to create landscapes, parks, public places and forests that anticipate the prospect of being safe. Of being challenged by fire in a way that they haven't been done in the past. So it's very much, I think, more to shift. And I say this mindful that we are still in the middle of a very tough fire season. It is not over. The crisis continues. So, but looking forward, when the fire season is over and into the budget cycle, that's the direction that the Welfare Service and the Ministry of Forest and indeed the whole of the government will be thinking of. Do you have any follow-ups? Yeah, I guess, you know, would you say it's fair to characterize like the last 20 years of funding for fire prevention as underfunding? Is that what it is? And, you know, after this fire season, could the Colombians expect sort of a paradigm shift and how the province approaches fire prevention? Well, I think a reference was made to former Premier Filman's report arising out of the 2003 fires and they were in the Kelowna area. That's now 20 years ago and some of the recommendations that were made in that report focused on the very topics that we're discussing right now. Similarly, there was another report done by former Cabinet Minister George Avid and Chief Chapman in 2018 that similarly talked about the need to develop a broader ethic and understanding of what's required for fire prevention in the future. So the public debate has been there. I think sometimes the challenge is execution, but I sense that municipalities and the public, particularly after this fire season will be much more disposed to talk about these and welcome the efforts and their opportunity to participate as citizens, as volunteers, as companies, as businesses in the work of fire prevention and general response to disasters. Because as Minister Ma said, fire is obviously a huge challenge, but other climate challenges such as flooding, we're in the middle of a drought as well, and that has implications for our water systems. We are going to have to rethink our responses in a profound way and our government is committed to doing that. Thank you. Thank you everyone for joining and thanks to everyone for calling in. That would be all for today.