Atlantic Wildfire Centre plan 'flies in the face' of Labrador West's safety, says MHA
Labrador West MHA Jordan Brown wants the province to return a water bomber to Wabush
After a devastating wildfire season hit Labrador this summer, MHA Jordan Brown says the province's plans for an Atlantic Wildfire Centre in Gander dismiss its responsibility to protect the Labrador West region.
"Unfortunately this province continues to ignore this region and treat us like a mining camp instead of the community that we actually are," Brown told CBC Radio's Labrador Morning.
Last week, Premier Andrew Furey revealed the details about the government's plans to build a forest fire centre, which will support fire fighting operations in the Atlantic provinces.
The centre plans to offer training, new technology and specialists in wildfire management, Gander MHA John Haggie told CBC News. The $32-million in funding will go toward repairing one of the province's five water bomber planes, purchasing two "bird dog" aircrafts, other fire fighting equipment, and simulator training.
No timeline for the centre's completion has been announced.
"It's fine that they want to improve access to service but in the same announcement they talked about how they are going to outsource firefighting services in Labrador West to Quebec and not replace the bomber that was cut out of this region by this government," Brown said.
He said the only way to effectively protect Labrador West is to return the water bomber to Wabush.
"We have no actual wild firefighters stationed in Wabush anymore, we have no water bomber stationed in Wabush anymore, we have no assets. We have to wait for someone to show up in case of a fire," Brown said.
"Instead of putting the assets that were taken from us back in Labrador West, they're going to fully rely on another province to provide service to us which flies in the face of this whole idea of an Atlantic Wildfire Centre."
Response times have just about doubled without a plane stationed in the area, he said, made worse, too, by the lack of aerial patrol and a stationed fire fighting crew. Brown says this is what put Labrador West at "a massive disadvantage" this past wildfire season.
Brown wants to see the province commit to strong investment in all regions of the province before centralizing their operations in Gander and outsourcing the fire fighting response to other provinces.
Firefighter recruitment is also an issue in which Brown wants to see strong investment.
"There is going to be more fires and there's going to be more need for fire fighting," Brown said. "But a province skirting its responsibility to a region and outsourcing it to another province, that does not help anybody."
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With files from Arlette Lazarenko and Labrador Morning
