By Cheryl Jahn

City on stand by with reception centre

May 12, 2025 | 4:00 PM

PRINCE GEORGE – The City is in a holding pattern right now. But with wildfires in Hixon, Williams Lake, Dawson Creek and Fort St. John already, the City has its reception centre up and ready to go.

“Some of the things that we added this year were the privacy panels that also buffer some of the noise in the space. We can go up to 10 kiosks,” explains Tanya Spooner, Manager of Emergency Programs. “And really, we’re hoping to be able to manage up to an evacuation of about a thousand people from the space from here.”

This is the second year these ATCO trailers have served as a reception centre, but there is hope the City will be home to a bricks and mortar facility.

“The message we’ve heard is that Council is interested in exploring what a permanent facility may look like in partnership with the province, British Columbia,” says Eric Depenau. “And so in 2024 or now in 2025, we’re continuing our conversation.” There have been wildfires in the North already, starting as early as May 1.

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“The trailers certainly meet our immediate needs, but, on the preparedness side, we want to be as prepared as we possibly can be. And so in the shoulder seasons in the winter, we only can speculate and prepare and plan for what would happen. And so having a permanent facility would benefit those times when these trailers are not in place. ”

Evacuation is never a welcome process for those in it and the reception centre is set up to help those who as in a very trying circumstance.

“If you are prepared and you’ve already done the pre-work, we can actually do a registration” says Spooner. “And in about 15 to 20 minutes now, we can do a reregistration or an extension in about 10 minutes. In 2017, for example, it took 45 minutes to an hour for each of those registrations, which means we can go about six times faster than we did in 2017.”

Tanya says there are measures folks to take to prepare for the unexpected. For example, there is a provincial app -the BC Services app – that was used during COVID to show proof of vaccination.

“We actually have 24 staff that we hire each season dedicated to this role, and we give them specialized training to make them, in my mind, the most effective team in the province, emphasizing BC service,” says Spooner. “So you can actually go there pre-verify yourself, and that makes you eligible for being able to receive electronic funds, transfer from evacuations services.”

But as with every fire season, the hope is this reception centre will not be needed.