If there is a lesson to be learned from this summer's wildfire evacuation, it's reduce the paperwork, Mayor Lyn Hall said this week.
More than 10,000 evacuees registered in Prince George, a process he said was made more complicated than it needed to be by the multiple forms that needed to be filled out.
"I think registration piece was the biggest thing for us," Hall said. "It took a lot of person power and time to complete the paperwork for the people who were evacuated to Prince George for the wildfires.
"And then not only that, that paperwork needed to be added onto, it needed to be updated as the evacuation continued and that meant it was a real strain on our volunteers."
The provincial government is conducting a review it wants completed by next spring and ahead of the next wildfire season.
Stressing he has no firm number, Hall said there is anecdotal evidence that at least some family have since chosen to call the city home after the wildfires forced them out of their homes.
"We know that there are families who decided to stay in Prince George," Hall said. "They've got jobs, children are in schools and that's a very good story. I don't know how many have chosen to do that but I do know there are a few."
School board chair Tim Bennett said enrollment is up by about 300 students over last year but declined to estimate how many of them are evacuees.
Central Interior Native Health Society executive director Shobha Sharma said between five and 10 clients who were evacuated this summer remain in the city, "because they have other relatives here."
