Cherry Creek Volunteer Fire Department’s water tender truck and two-person crew are back in BC’s Interior, on call to fight wildfires.
Fire Chief Lucas Banton and firefighter Pat Edwards took the tender to Kelowna, where they have been waiting on standby for the past week.
“Staging is set up (in Kelowna) so they can move resources anywhere in the province based on need,” Banton said.
This is the second time Cherry Creek crews have gone to the Interior to help out: Banton and Jeff Findlay took the tender to Williams Lake last month and were put to work.
Cherry Creek Firefighters ‘humbled’ by wildfires
A second two-person crew consisting of 1 Sproat Lake Deputy Chief Rick Geddes and Cherry Creek firefighter Mike Albrecht were due to relieve Banton and Edwards Tuesday afternoon.
My #BFF helping me prep for my deployment to the #bcwildfires #mansbestfriend pic.twitter.com/lLnF5RfaeF
— Rick Geddes ⚕ (@DC_Geddes) August 8, 2017
“There’s another crew coming up to relieve us,” Banton said from UBC in Vancouver, where he was filling out paperwork and waiting for the new team to arrive.
The teams are rotating out after spending a week in the Interior. “We’re finding a week is probably the best,” Banton said; the volunteer firefighters are taking time out of their regular jobs to help with the wildfires.
Cherry Creek also made arrangements to backfill their own firehall with another water tender, “just so we had extra capacity and we weren’t left short in Cherry Creek,” he said.
Cherry Creek can also draw on mutual aid from surrounding fire departments, he said. “We’re covered by other fire departments if we need help and we help them out if they need it.”
Cherry Creek is not part of the Alberni Valley fire departments’ automatic aid response, however, it’s a work in progress, Banton said.
“We’re just getting it drafted,” he added.
