Things are going to look different this year in the Lakes District, with the annual Initial Attack firefighters coming in.
They can’t escape the wrath of COVID-19, which has affected nearly everyone in some way.
As with the tree planters written about in Lakes District News last week, the firefighters are also at the mercy of new protocols and procedures, around social distancing in particular.
Nine Initial Attack (IA) firefighters have been hired and will be stationed in Burns Lake, but they’ve been split into three groups to keep the numbers of people getting together low, according to fire information officer with the Provincial Wildfire Coordination Centre, Hannah Swift.
Three of these firefighters are already in Burns Lake, trained, and ready to response to a fire at any given time, she said.
While ordinarily, all the candidates for the IA team would meet in Merritt for a very large New Recruit Boot Camp—between 150-200 firefighters would meet in total, broken into three one-week long sessions (according to the Province’s Wildfire Service webpage)—due to safety concerns about social gathering this year the boot camp was cancelled, said Swift. She assures that the Province has designed new ways to test and train new recruits, which will hold them to the same standards as before.
According to Swift, the Province’s new tactics include modifying training by using online and video training as much as possible; meeting through conference calls or video calls whenever possible, instead of in-person; limiting the travel of firefighters and those who work with them to only essential travel; and engaging in field training exercises only when the risk for the spread of COVID-19 is low—breaking the firefighters into small groups was part of this plan.
Swift said the Province also made an additional effort around firefighting this year when they put forward the open burning ban recently. This will help keep the overall threat of wildfire low, so the need for gathering firefighters into larger groups to fight fires will be low, too, she said.
The BC Wildfire Service is following the advice of the Provincial Health Officer and BC Centre for Disease Control to help protect the well-being of BC Wildfire Service staff as well as the communities in which they serve. As of March 12, 2020, people who return from travelling outside of Canada have been ordered by the Provincial Health Officer to self-isolate for 14 days. All BC Wildfire Service staff who returned or may be returning from outside of Canada will follow this order.
When asked where the fire fighters will live Swift replied, “Many of the firefighters at the Burns Lake initial attack location are residents of Burns Lake who are returning students and will be staying with family. Others will find rental opportunities for the duration of their term with BC Wildfire Service.”
The order was made April 16, and prohibits almost all open burning activity, including category 2 open fires, category 3 open fires, resource management open fires, fireworks, the use of sky lanterns, and the use of burn barrels or cages of any size or style. More on that can be found on the Province’s Fire Bans and Restrictions webpage.
Cathy L’Orsa, communications specialist for the Northwest Fire Centre, which works hand-in-hand with the firefighters in the Burns Lake area, added that while the spread of COVID-19 is a worry, so too, would be the risks posed if there wasn’t a solid, working fire crew.
“We are adapting in response to the dynamic COVID-19 situation in BC. And while the health and safety of our responders is paramount, we must still ensure we meet our mandate to respond to wildfire and other land-based natural hazards,” she wrote in an email to Lakes District News.