(Photo credit: RCMP)

By Kevin Rothwell

B.C. officers flown in

Police presence beefed up in wake of fires

Aug 19, 2023 | 2:10 PM

An additional 44 RCMP officers have arrived in Kelowna to help manage security during the unprecedented wildfires happening in the Central Okanagan.

“We have launched air resources from the Lower Mainland to bring in officers this morning including additional police officers as far away as Vancouver Island, Lower Mainland and North District,” Kelowna Regional Supt. Kara Triance told a news conference Saturday, Aug. 19. “We greatly appreciate the chiefs of police in all those communities who have released their officers to assist us.”

The officers are members from the BC Highway Patrol, Indigenous Policing Services, Tactical Troop, and other specialized and frontline units from within B.C.

Police are focused on several areas of deployment.

“From a security perspective, we continue to support the fire chiefs as necessary with respect to door to door alerts and evacuations and our emergency operations centre as those orders are coming out,” Triance said.

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RCMP have been securing evacuation routes, and doing static and roving patrols and tactical evacuations as spot fires pop up.

“I worked throughout the night with our officers. There were multiple times last night where officers were calling into the EOC (Emergency Operations Centre) identifying spot fires that we could get to quickly,” Triance added.

The superintendent also listed a number of ways the public can be of assistance.

“If you are ordered to leave, you are lawfully obligated to do so. We are asking that you comply with those orders. Sending our law enforcement and emergency personnel back into evacuated ordered areas to assist people to get out of those areas is a great risk to our officers and first responders,” Triance stated. “As of this morning, we had two individuals trying to force their way back into evacuated areas, and they were escorted out of the area.”

Officials at the Saturday media conference asked people to be patient and co-operative with emergency workers.

There have been reports of individuals loitering behind security check-points causing concerns about looting.

“I can assure you, right now, that we have no confirmed break and enters at this time,” Triance said. “We encourage anyone to report any suspicious activity. We know that some people are observing through their home security and we appreciate those calls to police. If you see something, say something, call 9-1-1 and we will actively respond.”

Police also report that there have been drones spotted flying in restricted areas causing the grounding of firefighting aircraft. It is illegal to fly a drone in an emergency situation.

The other issue for aircraft has been boater activity hindering water bombers and helicopters ability to pick up water, from Okanagan Lake.

“Today you are seeing a lot of increased air support from our fire crews as they really begin to hit those areas hard that our fire chiefs have spoken to. I’m going to ask from a boater perspective, if you are on the lake, when you see emergency aircraft in an area, you must leave,” Triance said. “We need clearance in that lake, our RCMP boat is actively patrolling and monitoring Okanagan Lake and those areas remain fluid, so if we need to shift to the south end of the lake, that will be the area that you need to move out of. If you are on the north end of the lake and you are seeing emergency response, you are not allowed in that area.”