Quesnel B.C. – As Prince George  welcomes the evacuees from the Cariboo,  Quesnel  is becoming home to a host of firefighters from out of province.“A professional  camp crew  came in yesterday and set up a  camp at the  airport, our public works staff worked  very diligently with them yesterday to make sure they have everything to make the camp functional,  water,  septic and so on,  and they  have connected w them with community based suppliers to make it a very functional camp” says Quesnel Mayor Bob Simpson.

Mayor Simpson says  firefighting crews will start arriving today in Quesnel “We’ve been told that  a hundred plus additional firefighters will be coming in,  these are some of the  firefighters from the other provinces and other parts of the Pacific Northwest.”

The  crews will be  ready to  get to work  on fires in the area,  such as the Alexandria and Green mountain fires. Simpson says  Quesnel will be a regional base,  “And that there  is an intention to fight more than   the Alexandria and  Green Mountain fires,  there will be resources for fires elsewhere  and they wanted to use the  (Quesnel) airport  as a deployment area because they    want to be able to fly people around rather than put them on  the roads, which are hit and miss whether they are open or available.

Simpson  says  additional RCMP  have arrived in Quesnel as well “We are  housing them at one of our high schools.  The RCMP were dispersed through 100 Mile House, Williams Lake and Quesnel  areas,  they will be doing  fire related work and relieving our local detachment  to be able to  get back to resourcing and  core policing duties.”

Simpson says additional flight resources are also expected “We are supposed to be getting additional helicopters and  fixed wing  craft to  deploy those crews on the fires.  That’s  good news for the entire region.”

Williams Lake remains on  evacuation  alert,  and if the order is  given,  that would mean  a further 10 thousand plus people will be expected to leave their homes and head north.  But Simpson says some people are already self evacuating because the smoke is so thick in Williams Lake.  “Interior Health has certainly acted very swiftly to get anybody in their system   out of Williams Lake, predominantly  as an advance measure of the  (evacuation) alert but also because of the health concerns around the smoke.”