Busy first few days for Jennifer Rice as BC's wildfire battles continue

Premier Horgan, Solicitor General
Mike Farnworth and Parliamentary
Secretary for Emergency Preparedness
Jennifer Rice during an update
on the BC wildfire situation

Right from the get go, the work on the government side of the Legislature is making for some busy days for North Coast MLA Jennifer Rice.

Ms Rice, who was recently named Parliamentary Secretary for Emergency Preparedness, has been quickly put to work assisting with the government response to the BC Wildfire concerns in the Cariboo and areas of the Okanagan.

Ms. Rice and her government colleagues were in Kamloops earlier this week to get an assessment of the fires and the response from area communities for those that have been evacuated.

NDP cabinet ministers visit Kamloops, stress wildfires remain number on priority
More military on the move into wildfire zones

Thursday,  the Minister of Public Safety and Solicitor General Mike Farnworth outlined some of the latest moves that the province has taken in response to the Wildfires.

He took note that additional support has now been put in place with a further deployment of members of the Canadian Armed Forces arriving in the Williams Lake area to help assist the RCMP in securing evacuated areas of the Highway 97 corridor.

Military sends extra help for exhausted police officers dealing with B.C wildfires
Soldiers from Edmonton head for fire zone
225 Canadian Armed Forces members headed to B.C.
Military arriving in BC today to aid in Wildfire efforts
More Canadian Forces deployed to Williams Lake to assist RCMP in Emergency Efforts

On Wednesday, the new Parliamentary Secretary posted some of the comments from Premier Horgan to her Facebook page, who provided further background on the province's response.

As for Ms. Rice, her work will continue on into the weekend as she, the Solicitor General and Forests Minister Doug Donaldson meet with federal ministers to review the federal response to date and where additional support may be required.

You can review the status of the ongoing work to quell the Wildfires from our archive page here.

More notes on the work of the North Coast MLA at the Legislature is available from our Legislature archive here.

Cross posted from the North Coast Review