Ottawa could do more to equip volunteer crews to fight wildfires: firefighter association president

This summer, the federal government has started to fund Canada-wide training focused on fighting wildfires. 

Distributed through a pilot program run by the International Association of Firefighters (IAFF), the funding is for full-time municipal firefighters and volunteer rural firefighters primarily tasked with putting out fires from buildings like homes, sheds and barns.

However, some say more still could be done to train and fund specialty equipment for firefighters who aren't part of provincial wildfire services, particularly volunteer crews that are resource-strapped.

Ken McMullen, president of the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs, says a significant percentage of the country is covered by volunteer firefighting forces.

"Geographically, over 80 per cent of Canada is protected by a volunteer or composite fire department," he told CBC News.

While most Canadians live in denser urban areas with a dedicated municipal fire department, large swathes of the country, including rural and unincorporated communities, rely on volunteer forces.

McMullen says those forces, which largely get their money through donations and provincial emergency funding, have very limited budgets compared to their urban counterparts.

Wildland firefighting, the domain of professionals like the B.C. Wildfire Service, requires specialized equipment like Pulaskis — hand tools that help dig up earth and root out fires — and large amounts of flame retardant.

That's on top of the training required for tasks like creating firebreaks.

"Some of our very small volunteer departments … their budget sometimes makes it difficult to put fuel in trucks, let alone buy specialty equipment that's used for wildland firefighting," McMullen said.

The push for more training and equipment comes as more blazes threaten properties in what's called the wildland-urban interface: locations where a fire could potentially affect man-made structures at the same time as burning natural fuels such as trees and shrubs.

"Over 10 per cent of Canadians live in interface areas where urban communities intermingle with flammable environments like forests," said Natural Resources Minister Jonathan Wilkinson at a news conference on Aug. 11. 

"In our fight against wildfires, the interface must be an urgent area of focus."

Large-scale support needed

McMullen said the Joint Emergency Preparedness Program (JEPP) — a federal program that ran from from 1980 until 2013, and funded provinces for various emergency initiatives — should be reinstated and modernized to deal with the nature of modern wildfire seasons. 

During the Union of B.C. Municipalities conference in 2012, a representative from Creston, B.C., tried to pass a motion that would have lobbied the federal government to stop the program's cancellation.

According to the motion, JEPP allowed municipalities to allocate money for urban search and rescue, road rescue services, and other critical infrastructure initiatives.

"There [were] things on emergency management that fire departments didn't have a lot of training and understanding on, and so those were applicable under the JEPP funding," McMullen said.

A spokesperson for Public Safety Canada did not directly answer a question from CBC News on whether the JEPP could be reinstated.

However, they pointed to $400,000 in funding to the IAFF under a pilot program, which will see 25 instructors being trained to provide wildfire response training.

"In addition, the IAFF will deliver 15 courses across five different locations in western Canada, training up to 325 structural firefighting personnel on wildland urban interface training," a statement from Natural Resources Canada reads.

One of those courses was recently held in Kamloops, B.C. — the central Interior city that has already seen its share of emergency orders this wildfire season. 

Numerous firefighters from the urban Kamloops Fire Rescue were at a four-day IAFF training camp to learn about wildland firefighting tactics on Aug. 2.

"[Wildfires] happen at any time and conditions like this year, where we're so dry especially in this region, the opportunity is there," said Kamloops Fire Chief Ken Uzeloc at the training camp. 

"We need to make sure that we've got the people trained to be able to do this work, do it effectively and safely."

The federal government says the $400,000 funding is only for a part of the first phase of a larger training program, which will roll out next year.

Ottawa is also promising $256 million in funding over five years, starting this fiscal year, to provide equipment for approved wildfire-fighting projects across the country.