CBS tallying costs and lessons learned from wildfire weeks

By Craig Westcott

CBS Deputy Mayor Andrea Gosse says the Town is adding up the costs incurred from dealing with the wildfire evacuations on its borders last month, and is also planning on learning some valuable lessons from the experience.
During the first couple of weeks of August, residents in some parts of Seal Cove were evacuated and others placed on evacuation alert when a wildfire in neighbouring Holyrood raged out of control. The Town’s hockey rinks and main fire hall were used by emergency response officials to deal with the Holyrood fire and soon had to contend as well with a fire on CBS’s eastern border on back of Fowlers Road at Paddy’s Pond. That fire caused an evacuation alert for the whole east end of CBS from Topsail to Manuels bridge.
“We had a conversation just this week wondering where we are budget wise,” said Gosse, who chairs finance matters on council. “We’ll have a ‘lessons learned’ (session) because this was a new experience for our town to have this wildfire situation… We know there were costs incurred – there was overtime and equipment and supplies for the fire department… And it wasn’t just our fire department involved. Most of our senior staff worked in the emergency operations centre full time for two straight weeks. That’s a significant staffing allocation. So, we’ll be looking at that.”
Gosse noted staff will be looking to see if there are any federal and provincial funding programs that may reimburse some of those costs.
“When you have a situation like this it’s an opportunity to learn from it,” said Gosse, “and identify some gaps in your emergency response, look at what you could do differently, what we need to upgrade, and what does our fire department need in equipment and tools to better prepare them in the event there’s another situation such as this.”
The wildfire response won’t create a big budget deficit, Gosse allowed, and there’s also a small contingency set aside for emergencies. “And when you have extra costs, then you look at trying to save in other ways,” she added.
But Gosse expects the experience will lead to more training for staff on how to deal with wildfires.
The Ward 2 councillor was also struck by the number of volunteers who offered to help.
“The Red Cross was set up for this, but then there were so many volunteers who came forward,” said Gosse. “We had service organizations reach out to see if they could do anything, and of course the Salvation Army. You’re never short of a helping hand in this community.”
The situation had Gosse reflecting on a trip that she, Ward 4 councillor Melissa Hardy, and Fire Chief John Heffernan made to Ottawa last year to attend a conference on emergency preparedness and climate change. “They showed fires from Fort McMurray and western Canada and for us it seemed so remote,” said Gosse. “We were just in awe of the things we were learning and the things they talked about… preparing safe towns and prepared towns. That seemed so remote last fall when we were there and then less than a year later that’s where we are.”
One situation that arose during the wildfires that will need an especially close look was the long traffic jams on Route 60 when both the TransCanada Highway and a section of Peacekeepers Way closed to let firefighters tackle the Paddy’s Pond blaze.
“These are the things that we have to learn from now,” Gosse said. “We have to look at if there was something that was bigger, how do we handle that? Because we know how gridlocked it got getting in and out of Conception Bay South… But we’re fortunate and we’re very thankful for all the services and the great management that was done. We were very fortunate in Conception Bay South and we’re quite thankful.”