The deputy minister of government relations says lessons learned during this year’s unprecedented forest fire season will form the basis for firefighting efforts in the future.
Al Hilton says the government is now in the process of a major review, based on input from stakeholders and nearly 700 people who took part in an online survey. The last of the online surveys came in this week.
In all, there were 681 responses, as well as numerous meetings in the north with communities and First Nations that were in the line of fire over the summer.
Hilton says government officials are using that input to review how the crisis was handled and what could have been done better.
“I don’t give myself grades,” he said. “There is a lot of things we did right through the community consultation but there are a lot of areas of concern and the whole purpose of the lessons learned exercise is to figure out what we could do better.”
The concerns raised include everything from better communication with local communities to making sure care-givers and families are kept together in an evacuation.
More than 15,000 people had to flee their homes this past summer. It was the largest evacuation in the province’s history.
It cost more than $100 million to fight the fires. While some homes and cabins were lost, there was no loss of life.