We have several standing response structures in the Yukon. We have a very mature and well-developed wildland fire program. We benefit in that program from a very robust resource exchange program across the country. We have certain levels of preparedness that we are used to and plan for in the Yukon. We've resourced ourselves accordingly in the Yukon for what we anticipate to be an average fire season. We look at the weather, and we look at the anticipated fire behaviour. We look at the available resources, and we manage those through a type of coordination centre, which we call the Yukon duty room, and that manages those internal Yukon resources.
Those levels of preparedness are set. When I say “levels of preparedness”, that is the number of crews we would have deployed in certain areas of the Yukon, the number of aircraft, helicopters and air tankers. Those would be determined based on the weather and the level of preparedness that is required.
We would report in daily through the fire season with other agencies across the country to understand the level of preparedness across the entire country. We would then take advantage of those mature agreements we have under the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre to exchange resources as required.
For other emergencies, we would manage those through our emergency measures organization and our emergency coordination centre. Similarly, we would evaluate our level of preparedness that is required based on the given factors of fires or flooding. For example, last year, with the flooding we had, it was a very slow-moving event where we understood the significance that existed in the headwaters of the southern lakes, and we had enough historical data to understand that we were going to have flooding. We were able to resource, similar to what we do with wildland fires, and understand the risk and the resources that were going to be required, and we dedicated those resources.
Of course, we are not used to having these competing climate emergencies that we've undergone in the Yukon of fires and floods at the same time. We did initially stand up the response to that flood with all internal resources, but as the fires became more significant and as fatigue set in with emergency responders, it became apparent that we would need some additional support externally, the type of manpower and human power that would be required to stand up a response and construct the temporary infrastructure needed. We built about a five-kilometre berm, and it became apparent that we would not be able to resource that in the Yukon.
First, we looked at our internal resources, firefighters and emergency response professionals. Second, we looked to the private sector in the Yukon, to companies that may be able to support, and we called for new employees. We also coordinated a significant volunteer movement to make that happen. The reality was that there were not 200 additional people in the Yukon available through any of those means to support us. It was at that point that we were forced to turn to the Canadian Armed Forces for that support.