The Challenge
The wildfires blazing through BC have caused nothing but terror and grief to our communities, our natural land, and our infrastructure. With fires spreading in all directions, the BC Ministries responsible for maintaining safe roadways need to ensure that safe access and egress is available in every direction possible to allow for communities to make safe evacuations and to allow those fighting the fires access to the front lines. When the Ministry of Forests came to CEC with a burnt bridge from the Tremont Creek Fire, we knew we had very little time to go in and replace the bridge to provide an evacuation route for the community of Logan Lake.
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The Solution
In BC’s provincial state of emergency in the summer of 2021, we had an urgent request to come view the charred bridge. CEC had less than three days to complete this job. In August 2021, our owners went out to the site and evaluated the conditions, then came back to our crew with a plan of action. After discussing the project with the crew, it was all hands on-deck to ensure we had everything we needed to mobilize out to the site that night with a portable bridge loaded up on a trailer. By the next morning, CEC was hoisting out the remnants of the original bridge, preparing the bridge approaches, and replacing the timber abutments. By the following afternoon, the new bridge was in place and opened to the public! As it turns out, CEC works best under pressure.
