The Conflagration-Battling Hero Class Among Us

"They said they'd be meeting in Bangor Friday night and I had my graduation Friday night, so I graduated and got my diploma, and headed to Bangor and met with the rest of the crew, and then we headed to Nova Scotia."

Hunter Sousa, 18, Maine

 

"Despite the fact that we have our feet in the water, it's burning."

"Since there are immense trees, the fire takes on inconceivable views very quickly because once the fire starts to come out of the soil, it attacks the trees, it rises to the top and you have trees of 30, 40 metres and that's how you have big fires that start very, very quickly."

Eric Flores, head, French firefighter team

"We could see multiple plumes of smoke in the local area and for us, we could tell from the fire behaviour we could see, and the smoke we could see, they were fairly intense fires moving at a rapid, rapid rate through the forest in high fuel loads."

"From that, we knew we're going to have some significant days ahead of us."

"I think [my family was] excited and nervous at the same time. They've seen the extreme fire behaviour and crazy videos getting around social media and our news platforms in Australia, but they're very proud that our family can come and support Canada and represent Australia in providing bushfire support."

"We tend to use a lot more fire trucks with water to extinguish hot spots. I found here that we're using a lot more machinery and hand tools and hand crews to extinguish fires, which has been a change of mindset for us but it's still been really effective on the fire line to control these fires." 

Andrew Stewart, South Australian Country Fire Service

Australian firefighters have been deployed to Edson to fight an out-of-control wildfire. (Alberta Wildfire)

"Our crews are used to being deployed when there is a need, in terms of the intensity of the fire and the strength. We know how to manage our fatigue and we know how to work very professionally."

"Canadians are warm, welcoming people. We're enjoying to learn because what we do on the operations — we sing before we start our day. We sing, we pray and do our national anthem." 

"They've seen the crowning fires. We learned it in classes [but] we actually got an opportunity to see a crowning fire. We've learned something different. And also, the mop up — the way it's done here, you make sure there's a lot of water … it's something different from home in that regard."

"They [her three children] don't cry if I'm leaving. They understand. They are my first supporters in everything."

Antoinette Jini, firefighter, Working on Fire, South Africa 

South African firefighters work on a wildfire burning near Edson, Alta. (Credit/Alberta Wildfire)

 

Canada's forests are being consumed by wildfires, in an earlier-than-usual wildfire season, and greater numbers of wildfires than could be handled by Canadian fire-fighting crews. Given hot, dry temperatures and high winds, the fires spread quickly, some of them caused by lightning. Many, however, are caused by human carelessness, tossing lit cigarette butts out of car windows, failing to properly douse campfires, and in a more sinister assessment, some deliberately set.

Several days back, there were no fewer than 1,477 foreign firefighters working alongside their Canadian counterparts to control 400 out-of-control fires in Ontario, Quebec, British Columbia and Alberta. They're deployed through the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre. There are firefighters that have arrived in Canada to answer the appeal for international help from Mexico, Portugal, Australia, New Zealand, Chile,Costa Rica, Spain and the United States.

There are 400 firefighters from South Africa, one of the largest foreign firefighting contingents, deployed to Alberta, working shifts of 14 days straight, with four days off between working shifts. South Africans have had to learn how to fight fires in a country with different vegetation and climates than their own, explained strike team leader Vincent Lubisi, working in Edson, Alberta. Their focus is on securing the perimeters of the fire, slowly working inward.

"In South Africa, they fight the fire more directly", he said. Co-ordinators like Antoinette Jini, helping to organize teams on the ground are included. They make certain assignments are understood, and information is conveyed properly. She counts their experience in Canada as mutually beneficial since it allows them to learn of North American resources and techniques, like mapping fires. "We have built the relationship and we've learned many things while we're engaging and collaborating", she explained.

 

Flores and his team are tasked with saving the northern Atikamekw village of Obedjiwan from a 150-square kilometre fire that is burning out of control. His team is focusing on holding the southern line close to the village with fire breaks, hoses and digging out smouldering embers to stop them from reaching surface vegetation. His firefighters were successful in holding back the flames from the community. They have also become acquainted with an "incredible number" of blackflies and mosquitoes: "Sometimes they're getting eaten alive", he said.

 

As for Hunter Sousa who just celebrated his high school graduation, he is one of many firefighters from the United States giving aid as Canada fights its worst wildfire season in memory. From five continents, the firefighting personnel from ten different countries have been battling flames, fatigue and mosquitoes. Hunter Sousa's main duty at the Barrington Lake Fire in the southwest of Nova Scotia is to map the extent of the fire, walking around the edge of the burned sector, marking the perimeter in an app on his phone, and putting out the occasional hot spot.

 

Eric Flores and his team of French firefighters were dispatched to Quebec where he says, the fires are much larger and more challenging that what he usually is confronted with at home. He and his team are in the Mauricie region -- an area near a remote First Nations village, accessed only by helicopter. The area is described by Flores as wet and swampy, the fire travelling through underground root systems, and even under water.