Mobile overdose prevention clinic in northern B.C. destroyed by fire

A mobile clinic providing overdose prevention services in Fort St. John, B.C., has been destroyed by fire.

Local fire services in the community, around 440 kilometres north of Prince George, confirmed they received a call on Sunday around 9 p.m. PT reporting the vehicle was on fire in a hotel parking lot.

The mobile clinic, jointly operated by Northern Health and the First Nations Health Authority (FNHA), offered supervised consumption services, as well as Naloxone kits and other harm-reduction supplies.

The Northern Health region has the province's highest rate of drug toxicity deaths, according to the B.C. Coroners Service, while Indigenous people account for a disproportionate number of such deaths across the province.

When authorities officially launched the mobile clinic in February, FNHA northern region vice-president Julie Morrison said it was a "culturally safe initiative" for Indigenous people at risk of overdose.

"It is vital we do everything we can for our people as B.C. First Nations are dying from toxic drug overdoses at five times the rate of the rest of the population," Morrison said in a news release.

While there has been no confirmation on what caused the fire at the mobile clinic, Northern Health condemned it as a "senseless act of destruction" in a written statement to CBC News.

Chief medical officer Jong Kim says the mobile clinic was well used by the local community and the authority will now have to put its mobile overdose prevention services on hold for at least several days.

He says his team is exploring different solutions to keep providing services to the area's vulnerable population.

"The team is working to ensure that this life-saving service can continue, and Northern Health [is] committed to harm reduction and overdose prevention," he said.

CBC News has contacted the Fort St. John Fire Department and the local RCMP detachments for more information about the fire.

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