BC NDP roasted for wildfire tweet

VANCOUVER (NEWS 1130) – The BC NDP is apologizing after being burned by a tweet about wildfires.

The tweet in question, posted to the party’s official Twitter account, said “Wildfire season is scary and that’s OK. Here’s what you need to know,” with a link to information about wildfires. The social media post went out Thursday afternoon and stayed up for hours before it was taken down and an apology tweet replaced it.

Many people took issue with the suggestion anything is okay about this wildfire season, which has destroyed communities, including Lytton, killed two people, forced thousands from their homes, and has smoke lingering throughout the province.

https://twitter.com/tired_elle/status/1426037321892126721

“That tweet should have never gone out, let alone stayed up for so long. It was meant to be empathetic but we got it wrong. We are truly sorry,” the party wrote in a follow-up post.

The post came two hours after the province held a press conference on the state of wildfires and just hours after about 2,000 people were told to leave their homes in Logan Lake.

It follows a similar incident where Premier John Horgan was criticized for his choice of words when talking about the spike in sudden deaths during the province’s first heatwave of the year.

When asked if the province could have done more to get the message out about the dangers of the heat, Horgan said he would await the results of a coroner’s investigation to know how many of the more than 800 deaths were related to heat because “fatalities are a part of life.”

“The coroner will be issuing a report later in the day about unexpected deaths over the past, I believe 48 hours. She will be, as she always does, investigating those fatalities and reporting out to the public, directly,” Horgan said.

“I’ll await the coroner’s determination. As Dr. (Bonnie) Henry said, fatalities are part of life. The causes of those fatalities are examined by officials that we’ve placed as a society, to make sure get the best information possible so that we can put in place programs to protect people going forward. This was an unprecedented heat wave, records broken day after day.”

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Heat warnings continue for the Lower Mainland Friday and smoke-related air quality advisories continues to blanket nearly the entire southern Interior.

As of Friday, there were 268 active fires across B.C. and 56 evacuation orders. Nearly 6,600 square kilometres have been burned so far, more than double the size of Metro Vancouver.

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