The City of Winnipeg and other partners practised what they would do in the event of an air quality emergency, ahead of what is expected to be another destructive and smoky wildfire season.
The city tested its response by setting up a mock clean air centre inside Sergeant Tommy Prince Place on Tuesday.
Hundreds of volunteers, playing the role of people needing shelter, filed through the community centre, where staff from the city’s emergency social services team and the Canadian Red Cross greeted them and took their information.
“We have not previously operated one of these in the city, so that’s part of the exercise today, is to learn in a simulated environment when it’s not real time,” said City of Winnipeg emergency management co-ordinator Mike Olczyk.
Volunteers were given background information on health conditions and other factors that determined how the staff should respond. Those with medical conditions were referred to Shared Health.
“If anyone does come in and perhaps they are susceptible to air quality as a hazard — so maybe they have a heart condition, lung condition, asthma, those kinds of things — then we’ve got a health assessment capability here,” said Olczyk.
Food was provided by the Salvation Army, and St. John Ambulance brought in a therapy dog.
After an abnormally dry winter, the federal government is warning parts of the country, including Western Canada, could face a devastating fire season.
“It is impossible to predict the summer that lies ahead of us, but what is clear is that wildfires will represent a significant challenge for Canada into the future as the impacts of climate change continue to intensify,” said Harjit Sajjan, the federal minister of emergency preparedness, during a briefing on April 10.
The city called on the Red Cross, which has experience setting up shelters in other emergencies like floods, to help with Tuesday’s exercise.
“Some people are saying the [fire] season is longer and longer and in our case, there’s no really such thing as a response season anymore. It just keeps on rolling into one another,” said Shawn Feely, vice-president of the Canadian Red Cross for Manitoba and Nunavut.
Whether the city opens a clean air centre, and how long it would remain open, will depend on the conditions, Olczyk said. Staff are still working out the criteria for when the centre would be opened, but decisions will likely be based on Environment Canada’s air quality index.
“Air quality affects all of us differently. So that’s a piece that we’re working on, to figure out the go-forward plan and what a trigger for activating a centre like this may be,” Olczyk said.
Tuesday’s simulation assumed people would be staying for short periods of a few hours. In the event people need to stay overnight, other arrangements would be made, such as bringing in cots for people to sleep on, Olczyk said.
WATCH | Clean air centre simulation gives City of Winnipeg staff practice ahead of wildfire season:
The City of Winnipeg and other partners practiced what to do in the event of an air quality emergency, ahead of what is expected to be another destructive and smoky wildfire season.