On the ground out west
Two P.E.I. firefighters sent to help control wildfires in Alberta
Two P.E.I. firefighters have been sent to Western Canada to help contain one of the hundreds of wildfires after a record-breaking heatwave over the previous week.
While the worst of the fires are in B.C., a few dozen fires have been breaking out in Alberta as well, where the P.E.I. firefighters have been sent.
A call has been sent out by the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre for help and the P.E.I. Department of Forestry is working to send out more, said Mike Montigny, manager of field services with the department.
“Right now, there’s a ton of outstanding orders, and we’re trying as best we can to free up resources to help.”
ROLES
Both P.E.I. exports started work in the Edson area of Alberta a couple hours west of Edmonton on July 5 and will be there for two-and-a-half weeks, said Montigny.
“The positions that they’re working on are what’s called strike team leader, so they’ll be supervising crews to help with particular parts of the fire.”
That might mean one is supervising a crew working on a fire break while the other is supervising an initial attack on a blaze – whatever needs to be done.
Given the remote nature of the work, neither firefighter could be reached on the ground for an interview, but Jeff Hannam, supervisor of provincial forest east, has been in their shoes plenty of times since 2003, including in Fort McMurray, Alta., and Australia.
“They’re on the ground. They are in a leadership role, but they are on the ground, so they’ll be working hard,” said Hannam.
Still, both were eager to lend a hand, though Hannam suspects it may be a challenging couple of weeks for their families.
“It’s different for me. My children are grown up. These guys, it must be tough,” he said.
“They both have young families, but I know they have wonderful family support, and that’s the only way it’s possible, with that family support.”
BENEFIT
For Hannam, travelling to help in these situations means more than just providing assistance.
“It’s an opportunity for us to gain experience. We might go three seasons without having a fire, so we gain the experience of fighting fires, putting our skills to use and staying fresh.”
It’s also a chance to learn about any new technologies or techniques and then bring that knowledge back to P.E.I.
Hannam is more than willing to take his turn when he can, but he will have to wait until his counterpart returns.
LOCAL CONDITIONS
Coming off the winter in P.E.I., Montigny was nervous about the fire condition outlook, as the province didn’t have a heavy snow load, which often means a lower ground moisture content, he said.
“Fortunately, we’ve had a higher-than-normal precipitation than we’ve been used to for the last few years and our indices, what we use to measure fire danger potential, are showing that we’re looking like we’re in decent shape.”
That doesn’t mean P.E.I. is out of the woods altogether, but conditions are favourable to not see any major fires this year. Still, people should always be mindful, said Montigny.
“This is a recreational province and by no means do we want anyone to not enjoy their campfires and that stuff, so I guess what I would like to encourage people to do is to keep an eye on our fire weather index page and to make sure when they have a campfire that it’s put out.”
“They’re on the ground. They are in a leadership role, but they are on the ground, so they’ll be working hard.” Jeff Hannam