Concerns over flooding and the takeaways of the 2017 wildfire season in BC, the worst on record, were at the forefront of a presentation in Victoria recently.
Former Liberal cabinet minister George Abbott and Chief Maureen Chapman presented 108 recommendations detailed in the report ‘Addressing the New Normal: 21st Century Disaster Management in British Columbia.
Of those 108 recommendations, 19 have been implemented and Abbott says the provincial government needs to assess whether the dyke system in BC is good enough for a major flood on the one or two hundred year flood scale.
One of the recommendations in the 150-page report is the need to make household emergency preparedness easier for British Columbians.
The provincial government is also investing 50 million dollars, spread out over three years, to wildfire prevention and wildfire risk reduction.
Abbott says provincial partners are key to wildfire prevention and risk reduction.
Abbott says selective tree harvesting and more prescribed burns are also key to reducing the risk of wildfire in BC.
In 2017, the province spent 550 million dollars during the wildfire season.
