British Columbia is urging residents affected by the Okanagan wildfires to use on-site mental-health resources as the region grapples with a provincial state of emergency and widespread evacuations.
Minister cites emotional toll as fires displace families
Kelly Greene, the province’s Minister of Emergency Management and Climate Readiness, visited Vernon and Kelowna on Aug. 10 and 11 to meet with local leaders and emergency staff. Her message: while accommodation and food are essential, psychosocial and culturally specific supports are equally critical for people who have been evacuated or who have lost homes.
Greene told reporters that evacuation is profoundly unsettling and that learning a home has been destroyed compounds the trauma. She highlighted the role of culturally based supports for Indigenous communities and the need to bolster resilience in places repeatedly affected by wildfire.
“The community is so strong and resilient but they’ve had so much devastation,”
Greene met with Okanagan Indian Band Chief Dan Wilson, whose community suffered significant losses in the Bradley Creek wildfire. The visit follows repeated fire seasons that have left some communities recovering from one disaster only to face another.
Psychosocial teams, volunteers and cultural supports
The minister emphasised the presence of Disaster Psychosocial Support workers at reception centres — easily identified by their distinctive “purple shirts” — and urged anyone struggling to seek help.
She also noted the emotional burden on volunteers who are often the first point of contact for traumatised evacuees and who themselves may be experiencing distress.
- Reception centres: provide immediate basic needs including shelter and food.
- Disaster Psychosocial Support: trained staff available at centres to offer emotional and practical support.
- Cultural supports: Indigenous-specific services acknowledged as important for community resilience.
The minister framed these mental-health services as a core part of emergency response, not an optional add-on, particularly where communities have endured repeated losses over a short period.
Investing in resilience through prevention and landscape management
Greene said the ministry is taking a multi-pronged approach to reduce future harm, naming programs such as the FireSmart initiative as well as prescribed and cultural burns, and changes to legislation to allow more forest-resiliency activities, including thinning.
She warned that wildfire damage can raise other risks, including flooding, once the landscape has been severely altered. That risk, she said, is not immediate in the Okanagan but remains a concern for future seasons.
| Response element | Purpose |
|---|---|
| Reception centres | Immediate shelter, food, and registration |
| Disaster Psychosocial Support teams | Emotional triage, coping strategies, referrals |
| Cultural supports | Community-specific healing and resilience |
Greene stressed that money and legislation alone cannot fully restore well-being; individual and community actions also matter. She urged residents to follow preparedness guidance and to lean on supports offered at reception centres.
The minister’s comments underline a growing recognition across Canada’s emergency-management community: as climate change increases the frequency and intensity of wildfires, health systems and emergency responses must integrate mental-health care and culturally appropriate services into the front line of disaster relief.
For those displaced or affected by the Okanagan fires, the immediate pathway to help is through reception centres where psychosocial workers, volunteers and culturally based teams are available to provide support and referrals to longer-term services.
