Wendy Thienes
Local Journalism Initiative Reporter
The Shaunavon Standard
A trio of volunteer firefighters from Shaunavon District Fire & Rescue spent 12 days in northern Saskatchewan this past August, part of the collective effort to contain a devastating season of forest fires in the province.
Corey Gulaga, Assistant Fire Chief, along with Firefighters Clayton Greenlay and Brett Kronberg, volunteered to head north when the call came.
“Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency heads the provincial disaster response team,” Gulaga explains. “When they realize the resources they have won’t handle a situation, they put a call out to Zone reps of Saskatchewan Volunteer Firefighters Association and that trickles down to Fire Chiefs to see if equipment and personnel can be sent.
“Chief Goldstein received a text and a few of us were in the room and started talking about it. The three of us said, ‘sure, why not?’ Within 48 hours we were on the road.”
Gulaga explained that they had to get approval from the local Fire Committee, the Town of Shaunavon who owns the truck that they took. The Chief must approve it and then the Province must accept the volunteers who step forward.
Along with the small fire truck and wildland firefighting gear, the men packed tents and sleeping bags as they didn’t know what or if sleeping arrangements were available. The tents came in handy their first three nights after arriving at what Greenlay describes as an ‘apocalyptic’ scene.
“We were driving into the smoke and didn’t know where we were. We were trying to find check-in locations in a smoky town (Beauval). At least an hour out from Beauval the visibility was already only twenty feet, and we thought we probably shouldn’t have gone this far. We thought we were lost. There’s no way they want us living here and operating in this. But it was exactly where they wanted us.”
One of the worst forest fire seasons in Saskatchewan drew volunteer firefighters from across the province and Canada and around the world.
“We did some 16-hour days, then drove back to camp and had to put fire out around the camp in the dark so we didn’t have to sleep next to an active fire,” Gulaga recalls.
Firefighters joined the efforts from as far away as Mexico, Australia, and provinces throughout Canada. Military personnel also joined the efforts and were stationed at a separate camp. After three nights in tents in Beauval, the team was relocated an hour north to an outfitter camp that needed protecting.
Each day brought its own challenges although the basic blueprint was similar: waking at 5 am, on the road by 5:30 am to get to the breakfast facility an hour away by 6:30 am, followed by morning briefings at 7:30 am.
“Then we’d get to work,” Gulaga says. “Mornings were mostly patrolling and checking things out. It gets cool and damp overnight, so the fire settles down and doesn’t move a lot. We try to get ahead of things before it heats up. On hot or windy days, things pick up by noon with full blown fires everywhere, so you try to contain them.”
Gulaga served as a Team Leader in the Structural Protection Division where the job is to keep homes and buildings intact.
“Everyday we put out multiple fires and some were close to buildings, but we weren’t involved with any actual loss of property.”
They estimate that their Division covered at least a 300km span of area.
The response follows the Incident Command System (ICS) which has become the standard for emergency management across the country.
Gulaga says, “We’ve taken training in ICS here but fighting forest fires was new. We train for what we do here; we fight fire on the ground. In that situation, you look up and there’s fire above you, too. The first couple of days we learned how to do it better. The tools we took with us and how we did things changed because you adapt.”
There were many expected and unexpected hazards during their stay.
Greenlay explains, “Trees fall. That’s one of the more dangerous things. You’ve got 6-9 inches of peat moss and muskeg, and sand below that, so trees fall easily. And we work long, hard days. With grassfires, we go hard for 3 hours (for a big fire) and then it’s out. It’s totally different up there; you’re fighting for days.” They indicated there was only one 30-degree day during their time there during which they could see smoke appearing here and there, ‘just like bombs going off’, and it was spreading so much faster. Putting out hot spots can create steam bombs when you put water on them, another hazard they became aware of.
“On one particularly windy day, we were fighting a fire next to a big two-lane highway,” Greeley says. “They had cleared 100 feet on either side of the highway. We were trying to contain it on one side, but it jumped a full 400 ft and got into the unburned side.
“We went in there, hopped through the ditch and a big thatch pile. A helicopter dropped water directly on the fire. We got our hoses and hand tools, and another crew joined us, and we contained it. It’s quite something to see a helicopter hovering 40 feet overhead dropping water…. We were drenched.”
“The way weather works, the humidity tables change, and everything rises, so there were days when it was clear although you knew there was a massive fire 40 km away,” Gulaga adds. “There were also bad, hard to breathe days. You do what you can but when you’re exerting yourself for 14 hours/day, you’re obviously going to take in that smoke. Respirators aren’t common there. Forest fires aren’t as toxic as structure fires and having a mask on your face isn’t feasible for the long hours of demanding work.”
While the group did see black bears, it was stumbling into a wasp nest that created greater panic with Gulaga and Greenlay each receiving multiple stings as they tried to retreat.
Despite the potential dangers and difficult conditions, they acknowledge that there was a lot of bonding through the experience, and it has created lasting memories and an impact on them. When asked if they would volunteer again if needed, there was no hesitation. “Yes, for sure. The three of us would definitely do it again.”
