Veteran firefighter values being ‘a better asset out in the field’
Gord Shaw has been on the front line battling fires since 1981
Wildfire season is around the corner, and Gord Shaw has seen his share of them.
Shaw started fighting forest fires in 1981 in the Interior’s Mackenzie region, where he still battles blazes today.
“I was awaiting a job working on Williston Lake on tugs, moving logs,” the 60-year-old said.
“Suddenly, they needed emergency firefighters.”
He’d deliver gear to the site, drop it off, return for another load.
Over the years he’s performed lots of duties, including some brief office work in another ministry.
He was dealing with expense items such as food vouchers, medical payments and the like for the department responsible for children, family and housing.
It was an office on the eighth floor of a government building in Victoria, and because of the security involved, he worked inside a chain-link fence.
“I quickly discovered that was not the position for me,” he said. “I thought to myself, everything I like doing I am not accomplishing in this job.”
So, it was back to the bush. Back, he said, “where I wasn’t interested in going further up the corporate ladder.
“I felt I was a better asset out in the field, where I knew things.”
Asked which fires stand out as particularly bad, he said they all are.
But upon further reflection, there are good fires, he said. Fires that reduce hazards, fires that restore ecosystems, fires that consume fuel on the forest floor.
“Mother Nature takes care of that so we can’t say all fires are bad,” Shaw said. “But what is trying is seeing people’s livelihoods or personal property in jeopardy.”
The fire crews themselves do the utmost to keep themselves out of harm’s way.
There have been plane and helicopter crashes and firefighters succumbing to pre-existing medical conditions while in the field.
“But we have not lost any person on the line,” Shaw said. “We’ve lost a few aircraft, and occasionally a helicopter will have an incident.
“Those don’t always result in a fatality, but they are red flags. We study what happened to see if we could have done something differently.”
Each province and territory lends its firefighters to neighbours, and Shaw has been all over Canada helping put out fires.
The technology today is a big help — weather predictions, lightning measurements in real time. But, a lot hasn’t changed. “Like any combustible engine, fires need a spark, they need fuel and they need oxygen to burn,” he said. So, retardants, foams and water that’s been thickened are used to smother fires; rain and air drops reduce a fire’s heat; and encircling guards are scraped down to the bare earth to cut off new fuel.
“It’s not easy work, as you can imagine,” Shaw said. “And I have seen so much, my man.
“The one thing you hate to see is the discouragement in people eyes, the fear.
“There are times, I’m sorry to say, you can’t stop the fire where it is. People need to be evacuated.
“It’s like football: you punt and pull back, we’ll have another chance.”