Northern Beaches Rural Fire Service volunteers spent six weeks fighting fires in Canada. Four local heroes sat down
Canada is experiencing a bushfire crisis this year, with more than 17.5 million hectares already destroyed in the north American summer. At the time of writing there are over 912 active fires, with over 229 out of control. This is the worst fire season since 1995 when about 7,000 hectares were obliterated.
To help out, the National Resource Sharing Centre (NRSC) of the Australian and New Zealand National Council for fire and emergency services (AFAC), has coordinated the largest ever deployment to Canada, sending over 600 volunteers across multiple agencies.
This is the first time the RFS has done back-to-back deployments to Canada.
RFS volunteers from the Davidson, Duffys Forest, Northern Beaches Headquarters and Mackerel Beach brigades – Jim Boyle, Wayne Stanley, Stuart Dawson and Gary Roach – were among those deployed from the Northern Beaches, with almost 50 years’ experience between them. The men are all deputy captains of their brigades.
Those who wish to volunteer add their names to a national resource database and wait for the call. When it comes, it’s all systems go.
“(I was told) ‘get your life together. You’ve got two days’,” says Wayne, 41, a construction business owner.
“I said no to the first three (requests), but went on the fourth call for the life experience,” says Stuart, 48, who runs a television production company.
Canadian firefighting is a paid job, and they don’t have the numbers required at times. Jim, 54, who works in IT and cybersecurity, says there were some Canadian firefighters that only had ten days off in the last 70.
Gary Roach in Alberta, Canada.
“We’ve got a volunteer firefighting force here, which they don’t have,” Stuart says. “That’s how different it is. They just don’t have the resources to call on, which is why we ended up getting the call.”
Firefighting in Canada is different than in Australia. For one, the landscape is different.
“Everything’s relatively flat compared to what we are used to here,” says Jim. “Lots of swamps and lots of permafrost as well.”
“The permafrost layer (frozen ground beneath the surface) sits below the layer of soil that’s burning. You can dig down to this layer and use the cold or frozen soil to bury and smother burning timber like logs,” Wayne says.
“It’s very effective, but takes a fair bit of time to do, as you are digging and running it into hot timber.”
There’s also a lot of peat in Alberta. Gary, 58, an Optus Consultant, says they use chainsaws to cut into the smouldering peat.
“You found yourself standing in a large hole and you needed to extinguish the hot edge. You needed to dig into the edge until you got past the hot material and into fresh, cool peat. You’d pull the hot material into the hole where it could smoulder out, sitting in already burnt material, and therefore safe,” Gary explains.
The vehicles used in Canada are different to the trucks used here.
“We’re used to working with fire trucks, whereas they’re used to using utes and helicopters and kilometres of hose, because they’ve got so much water,” Jim says. “You’re never too far from a beaver dam that you can pump water from.” Beavers build dams to protect themselves against predators.
The fires in Canada burn and smoulder, and Stuart says firefighters use ten times more water than here in Australia.
“We had a lot of unhappy beavers,” laughs Jim. “Sucking millions of litres of water from dams.”
“They do attack it differently,” adds Wayne. “We had probably 10 to 20 bulldozers on the job. And they would put three of them side by side and create a (fire) break and just go down to whatever they needed to.”
“We’d never do it here,” says Wayne. “We would have so many issues with locals and the politics of knocking over that many trees. Whereas there, that’s the only tool they’ve got. You could land planes on the strips they were putting in.”
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The four volunteers were picked for Canada for their specialist skills.
“We are all members of a team locally that does remote area firefighting. So we as a team are used to using ways of putting fire out, like digging fire out or dry firefighting without hoses,” says Stuart.
Dry firefighting is finding the edge of the fire and using hand tools to dig a line about a metre wide, to create a barrier that the fire can’t cross.
“The problem in Canada (is that) the fuels could be this deep (Stuart indicates about a meter with his arms),” Stuart says. “Because they’ve got a lot of peat and organic matter in the soil.”
One of the dangers to Canadian firefighters is falling trees due to a shallow root system, which has caused the death of several Canadian firefighters.
“When they’re tall the trees just fall,” Stuart says. “And once one goes, they all tend to go.”
Many Aussie volunteers stayed in mining camps. Stuart says the camaraderie was amazing and they were warmly welcomed.
“Everyone’s very thankful for you being there,” says Jim. “If you go to a store, and they get a sniff that you’re volunteers, they can’t do enough for you.”
Age is no barrier to volunteering and Stuart says they had a 68-year-old in their team in Canada.
“You had to be arduous,” says Gary. “We all have to do a fitness test every year to be at the level where you’re considered for these (international deployments),” says Stuart.
The fitness test is (universal) so that everyone deployed is trained to the same level.
“You’ve got to carry 20.4 kilograms for 4.84 kilometres in 45 minutes,” says Gary. “And you’re only allowed to walk. You can’t run.”
As well as a different landscape in Canada, the wildlife is different too and can be dangerous.
“We had a (black) bear go for one of our guys,“ says Jim. “And we had to scare it away.”
“We had tents attacked at our camp,” says Wayne. “So we …