VANCOUVER -- Seven firefighters in the Township of Langley are in self-isolation after exposure to a confirmed COVID-19 patient several days ago, CTV News has learned, and the situation is putting strain on the community’s resources.

Chief Stephen Gamble says Langley Fire Rescue was just notified yesterday about the exposure, which affected eight members, though one has now been cleared to return to work.

The rest have been directed to stay home as they await the results of their tests.

“At this point we don’t know anything until they go through their testing and a period of time, so it’s more of a precautionary thing,” said Gamble, noting the impacted personnel appear to be feeling fine.

He acknowledges that the loss of so many frontline workers, though hopefully temporary, impacts a department with 214 overall staff.

“Every type of call we go to, we don’t know exactly what we’ve got until we get there,” said Gamble, and though he wants the public to know they can call for help when they need it, he’s asking for help to keep his firefighters safe and healthy.

“If they require us at any incident that they give as much information as possible to our staff.”

When asked whether those firefighters went to other calls in the days between contact and diagnosis and whether other members of the public or fire department could’ve been exposed, Gamble said he doesn’t want to speculate and that he’s waiting for the test results to come back before looking for more direction from health officials.