• Thanks for stopping by. Logging in to a registered account will remove all generic ads. Please reach out with any questions or concerns.

2024 Wildfire Season

I'm really split on this as there are a couple of key questions and priorities that need to be established first:
1) is this just wildfire or all hazard response. It's similar, but often different training and requires additional infrastructure/vehicle/equipment response than simple wildfires do. For example in 2022 were the highways damaged in BC due to wildfires or was it the rain/flood events in part due to wildfire earlier in the season that caused the infrastructure/travel breakdowns.
2) is this seasonal or year round. Hate to say it but we haven't had a month off wildfires in quite a long time locally and if you think community evacuations have issues in summer try evacuating a community in December due to a fast spreading fire.
3) Why are you fighting the fire? What values are you trying to protect or is it just Fire = bad.
4) If the fire is being actioned due to risk to timber values or watersheds or wildlife....that a provincial responsibility. So it should be the province leading the charge on protecting the resources and not the federal government (Natural Resources Acts - Wikipedia.)
5) Whose tactics are to be used. Frankly each jurisdiction uses manpower and aircraft differently around the country due to cost/terrain/values/politics and resource availability. Add in a pool of people under Federal uniform and it changes again. My full and utter respect to those members of the CAF who assisted fighting fires...but its a different set up and resource usages of staff than I'm used to.
6) Is this just crews? or supervision? or Incident Management Teams? ICS works off of a rule of 7 situation where each person can have up to 7 subordinates. A unit crew leader has 4 sub-leaders who each supervise firefighters....and in turn will report to a Task Force Leader -> Division Supervisor -> Branch Director - Operations Chief -> Incident Commander (fire situation and needs will shrink or expand this reporting chain as needed). The point I'm trying to make is it's not enough to have a bunch of Privates but you need the Corporals, Sergeants, Warrant Officers, and multiple officers to make this effective...and you only gain that through experience.
7) what training standard to be used...there's no national standard for what experience needs and currently each province/Parks Canada conduct most of the training independently and then through the CIFFC office recognize each provinces certifications as equal to their own level X. This is slowly changing and there are some national/international level courses out there but they are rare.
8) who is paying for it all?
9) 5-10k national force? That is a HUGE amount of capacity anywhere in the world...
-PEI is up to 13 firefighters/staff last I heard. That's if every trained person leaves the office. But I use them to show the small end of the scale here in Canada. vs. BC Wildfire Services I think has the largest crew capacity in the country...there are ~1250 firefighters split between 30 unit crews and 162 Initial Attack Crews
  • the United States Forest Service has approximately 115 hotshot crews...that's ~2600 firefighters for the nation. Add in their other crews and they are currently at 8638 wildland firefighters (all classes/roles) out of 11,300 authorized strength. Wildland Firefighting Workforce | US Forest Service.
  • I've used those two organizations as I've been on several wildfires here in Canada with 1000+ personal on them. It shows how significant a major fire like that is anywhere in North America or the world for that matter.
10) We already have a number of national level IMT's. Can Task Force 2, HUSCAR, and then volunteer groups like Team RUBICON raise a question is the solution maybe to expand those supports rather than create new systems. Unfortunately many of the issues affecting these organizations also are similar to the Reserves and there is not process to allow for employee or employer compensation if deployed.

Wildland fire fighting is not a year round job, and most summertime fire fighting personnel are seasonal - they get hired at the start of the season and paid off at the end.

'All Hazard' is a nice concept but no one will pay millions to have people sit around for 95% of the year doing nothing.

Unless you're a fire department of course

Joking! Joking!
;)
 
I see.

Tell me, how many years of actual aviation experience do you have?
Not sure what this has to do with anything. But

About 11 years directly fixing aircraft.
10 or so years watching, talking to and learning from some of the aerial attack crews. Some involved on the logging end of things are long life friends.
Pretty impressive to see those helicopters and Mars at work.

How many years outside of Military aviation do you have?

because a few years ago I was asked by a few Helo crews in the Okanagan fire why our helos were only being used for site seeing tours. When they needed Bambi buckets. A few experts on this site chimed in our Griffon helicopters did not have the capability to do so.
They were the same and similar to the ones saying they could not fly in Afghanistan.
 
Wildland fire fighting is not a year round job, and most summertime fire fighting personnel are seasonal - they get hired at the start of the season and paid off at the end.

'All Hazard' is a nice concept but no one will pay millions to have people sit around for 95% of the year doing nothing.

Unless you're a fire department of course

Joking! Joking!
;)
I know alot of the forestry fire fighters use to be students. I don't think it is that way anymore.
It would be interesting to see the federal government hire 10,000 full time disaster response team members.
 
Wildland fire fighting is not a year round job, and most summertime fire fighting personnel are seasonal - they get hired at the start of the season and paid off at the end.

'All Hazard' is a nice concept but no one will pay millions to have people sit around for 95% of the year doing nothing.

Unless you're a fire department of course

Joking! Joking!
;)
Yes, but forest management to prevent wild fires is an excellent year round job. It's just that government doesn't want to spend money doing it, and private industry stakeholders are not incentivized to perform the work on their own timber stands. There are many places where, for the next several dozen decades, personnel (or robots or whatever) can get in into fall trees across all seasons, limb branches, stack logs, haul logs, chip, slash, and burn without putting themselves or equipment or Mother Nature (then causing rock fall or avalanche) at risk.
 
Not sure what this has to do with anything. But

About 11 years directly fixing aircraft.
10 or so years watching, talking to and learning from some of the aerial attack crews. Some involved on the logging end of things are long life friends.
Pretty impressive to see those helicopters and Mars at work.

How many years outside of Military aviation do you have?

because a few years ago I was asked by a few Helo crews in the Okanagan fire why our helos were only being used for site seeing tours. When they needed Bambi buckets. A few experts on this site chimed in our Griffon helicopters did not have the capability to do so.
They were the same and similar to the ones saying they could not fly in Afghanistan.
Ok.

Just checking, chief.
 
Yes, but forest management to prevent wild fires is an excellent year round job. It's just that government doesn't want to spend money doing it, and private industry stakeholders are not incentivized to perform the work on their own timber stands. There are many places where, for the next several dozen decades, personnel (or robots or whatever) can get in into fall trees across all seasons, limb branches, stack logs, haul logs, chip, slash, and burn without putting themselves or equipment or Mother Nature (then causing rock fall or avalanche) at risk.
The key phrase is forest management. Has not properly happened for decades
 
But with a cool new Premier!


Ive been very impressed with the Premier honestly, governing from the center of the spectrum. He certainly is on the right wing of the NDP and seems pretty focused on the economic problems facing the province.
 
How many years outside of Military aviation do you have?

because a few years ago I was asked by a few Helo crews in the Okanagan fire why our helos were only being used for site seeing tours. When they needed Bambi buckets. A few experts on this site chimed in our Griffon helicopters did not have the capability to do so.
They were the same and similar to the ones saying they could not fly in Afghanistan.

That old saw has been gone over again and again and again. It is not the military’s doing, but the lobbying and success of the commercial aviation operators in convincing governments across the country to prohibit the military from conducting fire bucketing (even on DND property, to put out range fires and the like) so as to maximize their own revenue. If commercial bucketing operators in the Okanagan asked you why the military didn’t bucket, they were either junior enough in their respective organizations to legitimately not know the answer, or old enough to know better. Based on the commercial fire operators’ efforts to maximize own profit water under that bridge, the RCAF removed the Griffon’s Bambi bucket from its very early service, never to be used much past its initial certification, so guess what? The ‘experts’ were right. The Griffon currently does not operate with a Bambi bucket.

Would be interested to see your reference as to which aviation experts were similarly saying the Griffon couldn’t fly in Afghanistan. I call BS on that.
 
Real bold to assume anyone else in Canada cares about Manitoba lol. We're the red headed stepchildren of the country.
Yep, the other day I saw a report about the Prairies and it appears that Manitoba was booted out of that group as well!
 
Would be interested to see your reference as to which aviation experts were similarly saying the Griffon couldn’t fly in Afghanistan. I call BS on that.

I must have been tripping balls when I saw them there, then.
 
Not a chief.
How many years outside military aviation do you have? I am genuinely curious.
Fair question. None.

You made some fairly…definitive…statements concerning water bombers and aerial attack. I was just looking to establish your experience base to make those comments.
 
Reminder, posted previously:
18 August 2021: Trudeau said a re-elected Liberal government would spend $500 million to train and equip 1,000 new firefighters across the country, who would be ready to spring into action before the next wildfire season. The money would also buy equipment such as water bombers and helicopters.

Trudeau pledges $500M investment ahead of next fire season if re-elected
 
A few Interesting, to me, at least, differences ( recruiting, compensation, and natural disaster experience ) between CAN-TF2 and CAN-TF3.

TF2 is open competition.

They get paid only when deployed,



TF2 has a lot of natural disaster ( including wildfire ) experience,

TF3 is closed competition,


They are already getting full-time pay, without being deployed,

TF3 did the 2011 Goderich tornado. As far as I know, that is the only natural disaster they were ever sent to.

I've only worked with TF2 - who are excellent to work with - a couple of times on wildfire. They did not come in as the wildfire subject experts but to help the EOC function and/or support specialists with non-fireline roles. As I understand it their membership is primarily drawn from the local municipalities who allow their members to attend training - paid - due to the additional experience and capacity it brings to each area for emergency response planning...and as part of that agreement they are also released from regular duties as needed to deploy. A very select number are basically full time who coordinate the planning and agreements for the outfit.

Part of the issue too is I think what degree of training each team has taken due to their local needs/geography. I believe TF1 (Vancouver) has deployed a little but again focuses more upon urban rescue/earthquake response vs. TF2 (Calgary) who has spread out training more. There has also been a few seasons in Alberta where any/all resources available were being used and due to the quality of TF2 are now kept in mind as a support resource as needed (along with a couple of other municipality teams slowly building up experience/capacity and at least one of which deployed last year).

Unfortunately my experience further east is either a) dated or b) sparse so I can't speak to how TF3 (Toronto) is operating.

For reference there are:
CAN TF1 (Vancouver)
CAN TF2 (Calgary)
CAN TF3 (Toronto)
CAN TF4 (Manitoba)
CAN TF5 (Halifax)
CAN TF6 (Montreal)
All are focused upon Urban Search and Rescue, follow ICS training but their reporting lines, support and membership varies.
 
Wildland fire fighting is not a year round job, and most summertime fire fighting personnel are seasonal - they get hired at the start of the season and paid off at the end.

'All Hazard' is a nice concept but no one will pay millions to have people sit around for 95% of the year doing nothing.

Unless you're a fire department of course

Joking! Joking!
;)
I wish I could say that....I was on new fires starting personally up until late November and I got a slow spring with no my first fire in April. But coworkers were dealing with fires in all the other winter months....at somewhere in there you need people to arrange for the seasonal season hiring and training work which is the "off season" workload.

Add in that for many agencies it's also only part of the job for many staff and the resource management work is year round as well and it's fun.

The one positive is that for many jurisdictions they are acknowledging that you can't rely upon firefighters only between May-August (aka school break) and that you need resources for those spring and fall situations. I think of it more like some of the historical militia call outs/campaigning season that used to be between seeding and harvest time in the summer months...and as warfare/tactics evolved has moved to 24 hour, year round battles. Lightning caused fires - yes - need the summer heat to generate the lightning but unfortunately we can't stop stupid people from starting fires year round which is where some resources need to be available for response.

I also agree that one of the biggest challenges is if you have a major situation you're always short of manpower/resources...but you can never justify having everyone sitting around for the 99% rare occurrence situation unless they are doing alternate meaningful work while waiting.
 
June 2021 about < 1KM from our farm. He made 4 passes in 2 trips, boxed in the fire on 4 sides, then choppers hit it for about an hour, and next local crews from the lumber mill and volunteer fire department and put it out with water and Cat dozers.
Sounds like a great set of tactics organized....retardant lines to slow spread/drop intensity. Helicopters to hit the hot spots/re-enforce the retardant lines until the heavy equipment created the fuel break and the crew secured the perimeter/fire.

Tankers are great...but they don't put out fires. Same with heavy equipment. You still need safe conditions to put folks on the line and glad this worked out for you as that's way closer than anyone wants a fire to be near their home.
 
Reminder, posted previously:


Trudeau pledges $500M investment ahead of next fire season if re-elected
To be fair to the federal government that money is being used through a mixture of provincial agencies (to increase capacity/training) and municipalities and some of it at least I can see the effects of around me.

For example PEI has used some funds to increase the trained capacity of provincial staff to create a larger pool of resources to draw upon it needed. It was used to partially fund some Wildland Urban Interface/Wildfire Training for a large number of resources in Alberta as of last week. as part of a "train the trainers" set up for municipalities.

How much is being spent where, and how many are new positions...I can't say. But some is coming out for sure.
 
Real bold to assume anyone else in Canada cares about Manitoba lol. We're the red headed stepchildren of the country.
Just like Kansas.

27f0126c-1c76-4ba5-9413-f7ad9de65778_text.gif
 
Back
Top