Bulkley Emergency Support Services (BESS) wants to temporarily amalgamate with other community support services groups to help boost volunteer numbers in each community.
Last week, the Town of Smithers approved a request by BESS to support a joint Emergency Support Services grant application to the 2025 Union of British Columbia Municipalities Community Emergency Preparedness program.
Council also agreed the grant will be managed by the Bulkley Emergency Support Services on behalf of the partner First Nation and local governments.
Bulkley ESS has applied for this same grant on behalf of neighbouring communities since the grant was established in 2017.
This grant funding has funded a variety of activities and equipment which has supported the Bulkley ESS to grow into the strong program it is today, explained director Matt Herzog.
“With the anticipated addition of new First Nation and local government partners, Bulkley ESS will now consist of five communities, which will increase the response capacity of the organization," he said.
"This partnership also increases the funding available for the joint program and all community partners, creating opportunity to better fund and deliver to the individual needs of each community.”
Bulkley Valley ESS will also seek funding for a temporary training officer position.
With an increase in new members from different communities a UBCM-funded part-time training officer is needed to support the ESS director. This position will be fully funded by the UBCM grant, if the application is successful. This grant request will total $200,000.
“So this project was developed to be able to support not only ourselves, but the other communities around us more so to develop volunteer numbers in other communities, to support us in Smithers and other communities when we're doing host operations,” Herzog explained to Smithers council.
“So we've approached other communities. The hope is that we would be able to support them in developing volunteer recruitment campaigns, managing those volunteer records for them, and then training those volunteers from across the region.”
He added that if there is a large-scale event, members from those communities, or any of the area's communities, will come together and respond to the affected community.
Bulkley Valley ESS, between Smithers and Telkwa right now, will respond to Witset, Houston and Granisle, until the volunteer numbers there increase and they will take over their own response in their communities.
"So for the next 24 months, we'll be responding into those communities. On average, each community gets between maybe one and two calls per year. So we don't anticipate a large increase in the call volume," Herzog said.
"But really, when we have the large reception centres, it can take 40 or 50 people to run a reception centre per operational period. So this whole project really came from making sure that we have the volunteer numbers to be able to support those responses, and a part of that is in this grant, being able to provide the same equipment to each community that Smithers has right now, so that when they are able to start responding to level one, level two calls, they'll have the exact same equipment that we do, the same uniforms, the same training, and it's just standardized across the region."