A mission in the fire zone: Evacuating The Pavilion care home

As a health authority, Interior Health (IH) is one of many provincial partners that will respond to emergencies and disasters. It’s a fundamental principle of emergency management in B.C.

A key component for coordinating any emergency or disaster is establishing an Emergency Operations Centre (EOC). While an Incident Command System can be set up to manage an incident or non-emergency event at a local level, EOCs are activated when IH’s senior leadership decides an Incident Comamnd requires more assistance.

The EOC is a physical (or virtual) space designated for gathering, analyzing and disseminating disaster information with key decision-makers at the table. The EOC supports and coordinates activities across the health authority, and provincially if required. The IC reports into the EOC. 

In response to the Aylwin Creek Wildfire, the Kootenay Boundary Incident Command was activated July 22. By July 24, the fire had grown to four square kilometers. The Pavilion long-term care home was potentially under threat.

To coordinate the evacuation of The Pavilion, Interior Health’s EOC and IC drew on the skills of dozens of staff from Home Health, primary care, the office of the medical health officer, environmental public health, transportation, logistics, communications and pharmacy, just to name a few.

Additional partners are also brought into meetings both at the IC and EOC. These may include First Nations, local government, Health Emergency Management BC and Divisions of Family Practice.

Lisa Keech is a nurse and patient care coordinator on the High Acuity Response Team (HART)* at Kootenay Boundary Regional Hospital in Trail. She was on duty when a call came in that The Pavilion was being evacuated. During evacuations, HART members are often called upon to be “Transport Captains” to assist sites with patient transfers and assessments.

(*Editor's note: A High Acuity Response Team (HART) transports patients in need of higher levels of care between rural or remote facilities. A team includes BC Emergency Health Services personnel and ambulance services, as well as specially trained Interior Health critical care registered nurses who provide expert care to patients while travelling.)

Lisa wrote this account of the evacuation.

“On July 25, we started a precautionary evacuation of residents of The Pavilion long-term care home in New Denver. This was a good call as by mid-afternoon, New Denver was on an evacuation alert. 

The High Acuity Response Team (HART) nurse in Trail called me around 10:20 p.m. It was decided she would make her way to New Denver, but Highway 6 was closed. The only access was via Kaslo, about a 3.5-hour nighttime drive each way on a dark, windy road.

An escort through Highway 6 was available, allowing a convoy of buses and the HART team to get to New Denver in about two hours, instead of 3.5 hours. We decided I would also go with the HART nurse to support her. So off we went around 11:30 p.m. 

I can only describe the scene through the closed active fire area as apocalyptic. The fire lit up the mountains. The smoke was thick. We then saw what must have been 30 kilometers of active fire on the other side of the lake leading past Silverton (which was already evacuated) to New Denver, just four short kilometers away. We were awestruck. 

We arrived at the Pavilion to find three buses already there that came from the other direction and one that followed us. The amazing staff had all 26 residents ready with photo identification tags on them, bags of their belongings labelled and attached to their walker or wheelchair and lists printed and ready to load. Both the staff and residents were calm and prepared.  

All the while, a half-kilometer away across the lake, we could see the entire hillside of the Valhallas in full raging fire through the bus windows. 

We loaded the first eight patients, their medication and food onto the bus, and off they went to Arrow Lakes Hospital. The second group of four went to Kaslo.

A box truck arrived and staff loaded up 26 patient beds, medication carts and other supplies to convoy with us. The residents’ pet cats were also taken in by staff members as we left. The whole evacuation was complete at the hospital by 5:30 a.m. 

As we were leaving New Denver though the road barricades, a few men thanked us for our help, and a few of them had tears in their eyes, touched by how we had come together to support the vulnerable. 

All throughout the evacuation, IH’s Patient Transport Coordination Centre did an amazing job checking on us and ensuring our safety.” 

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