The Bush Creek East wildfire got close to a residential house in the Shuswap on August 18.

Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Angie Laryea

Shuswap residents will have their opportunity to hear information gathered by citizens critical of the management of the Bush Creek East wildfire that decimated homes and properties in the Shuswap this summer later this week.

Lee Creek resident Jim Cooperman is presenting his evidence of what he said was poor wildfire management conducted by the BC Wildfire Service at a meeting with members of the affected Shuswap communities on Thursday, Nov. 23.

“We’re in the midst of a climate catastrophe, we’re seeing the number of hectares burned growing every year,” he said. “The wildfire service has to get better at putting fires out or we’re doomed.”

Cooperman was invited to the meeting by Columbia Shuswap Regional District director Jay Simpson. Cooperman is presenting the results of his research on six wildfire mismanagement issues that he said led to the loss of hundreds of structures, all surrounding a back burn ignited by the BC Wildfire Service on Aug. 17.

First, Cooperman wants to bring the community “up to speed” on the Forest Practises Board complaint investigation that was launched in mid-October but will take months to complete.

“They’ve (investigators) been and gone, there were two investigators here that were given a tour of the power line which was the supposed control line fire break for the control burn that became uncontrollable,” he said.

As part of the visit, Cooperman showed investigators a power point showing the evidence he collected to support his complaints, which he’ll be presenting at the community meeting this week.

The Lower East Adams Lake wildfire sparked up from lightning on July 12 where it burned for well over a month before merging with the Bush Creek wildfire on Aug. 19, becoming an out-of-control wildfire renamed the Bush Creek East wildfire. The wildfires burned through communities in the Shuswap including Scotch Creek, Lee Creek and Sorrento, destroying structures and shutting down the Trans-Canada Highway between Chase and Sorrento.

Jim Cooperman has been actively pursuing accountability from the wildfire service in an attempt to change the way wildfires are managed in the province since, so the same issues “don’t arise again.” 

“We’re not just complaining, we don’t want to see another community in the province go through the same thing,” Cooperman said. “These problems are systemic, wildfires just go on with the same issues. Backburns going haywire, the service not involving locals who have expertise, knowledge and ability to get fires out in the first place.”

Triton docks building smouldering in Scotch Creek after the Bush Creek East wilfire swept through.

Image Credit: SUBMITTED/ Jim Cooperman

Cooperman created six complaints and a petition thoroughly detailing his research findings of the wildfire management that locals are encouraged to sign before he sends it to the Ombudsperson for BC, Chair of the Forst Practises Board, Premier’s Wildfire Task Force and the BC Auditor General.

All six complaints are connected to the controlled burn ignited by the wildfire service.

“The massive aerial ignition of a 10 km long attempted controlled burn on Aug. 17 prior to a significant windstorm was a case of gross negligence, as it resulted in a firestorm that devastated the North Shuswap community where 176 homes, buildings and businesses were destroyed and another 50 were damaged,” Cooperman said. 

Cooperman said there was a lack of adequate warnings to North Shuswap residents about the danger of the approaching fire that resulted in residents evacuating by boat or over a long logging road, and that after that happened, the government’s enforcement of an evacuation order was “inappropriate” and “didn’t recognize the skills, capacity and efforts of many residents who remained to fight the fires after BCWS personnel left the area.”

“Many of these residents were loggers, ranchers, and contractors with years of experience working in the bush and some had extensive firefighting knowledge and experience,” he said. “Yet the laws as written do not recognize the need for flexibility during a wildfire or any emergency, so that competent residents can save their homes and their neighbours’ homes when there are no BCWS personnel in the area.”

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A lack of communication and the provision of misinformation by the service “that put lives at risk” is another of Cooperman’s issues.

Cooperman is pushing the government for recommendations for needed changes in wildfire management practises before fire season next year.

“Most of these concerns are not new but have occurred with previous wildfires and thus represent systemic problems with the BC Wildfire Service, and the emergency operations functions of the provincial and regional district governments.”

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The meeting is at 7 p.m. on Thursday, Nov. 23 at the North Shuswap Community Hall in Celista where attendees can sign the petition which has more than 1,400 signatures to date. 

The BC Wildfire Service did not immediately respond for comment. 

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