FILE PHOTO - Volunteers and evacuees are seen outside of the Sandman Centre in Kamloops, B.C. in this undated handout photo. With around 30 wildfire evacuees still needing accommodations in Kamloops, the Regional District says the decision to shut down the Emergency Social Services reception centre, open since July 15, could come very soon.

Image Credit: THE CANADIAN PRESS/HO, Jeff Putnam

KAMLOOPS - With around 30 wildfire evacuees still needing accommodations in Kamloops, the Thompson Nicola Regional District says the decision to shut down the Emergency Social Services reception centre, open since July 15, could come very soon. 

Emergency Operations Centre information officer Debbie Sell can't say for sure when they will be closing down all operations at Sandman Centre in Kamloops,f but they are keeping a close eye on which evacuation orders will be lifted in the coming days.

"Should more orders be lifted over the next day or two we will continue to reassess whether any reception hours are required," she says. "The centre was open on Friday, closed for the weekend, and it opens again tomorrow."

Sell says the hours for tomorrow, Sept. 12, will only be from 10 a.m. until noon. If they find even those limited hours aren't needed they will likely be shutting down.

"If we're only servicing relatively few people we don't need to have a whole centre open," she says. "We could just contact and service them in different ways."

Sell adds while there are only 30 people in need of accommodation services there are more in the community that have found a place to stay. Still, the numbers of evacuees in town continue to decline as evacuation orders are lifted.

There is no longer any evacuees staying at the Sandman Centre and city crews are in the process of getting the building ready for the opening of the Kamloops Blazers hockey season with the first home game on Sept. 23.

For more on B.C. wildfires and evacuations, go here.

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