Fire departments in southern Manitoba are responding to the call to help northern communities to save their homes and land.
The Chief of Volunteer Firefighters in Morris, Man., Trevor Thiessen, and another firefighter helped respond to the 71,000 hectares forest fire near Lynn Lake and Marcel Columba First Nation last week and during the weekend.
“It was intense,” said Thiessen. “He was surreal.”
They led their 15 -hour pumper from Morris to Lynn Lake and stayed there for five days, he said, helping to establish sprinklers in houses, the hospital and the school, where the flames approached dangerously.
They were there when the flames flew to the edge of the city on Sunday.
“You could see in the distance. You could see the smoke, and then you could see the flames in the crowns of the trees, and then you could hear, and then it was about you,” Thiessen said in an interview on Wednesday, two days after returning home.
Thiessen described the tank pump truck, which can transport and pump 2,500 gallons of water, as a “very key” piece in the response.
“We were able to organize somewhere and actually pump water for quite some time before we had to fill in, which was really crucial,” he said.
“The water system was correct to the maximum with the hydrants in operation, running sprinklers and other things, so it was really beneficial to have.”
His deployment left the main fire truck of his fire department, the staircase truck and another 20 volunteer firefighters in Morris, which according to Thiessen left the city well protected while they were out.
If a fire had lit that they could not handle, the Morris Fire Department could have extracted resources in its Mutual Aid District From Boyne River, which includes fire departments in Carman and Portage La Prairie.
There is no equivalent system in northern Manitoba
The southern Manitoba has 17 mutual aid districts that share emergencies.
North Manitoba does not have a reciprocal response system equivalent, due to geographical barriers and long travel distances, According to the Province website. However, it has three North training districts that ensure that training programs are available for communities in the region.
The Manitoba Office of the Fire Commissioner and the emergency management organization works together to make applications to local firefighters departments, a provincial spokesman said on Wednesday in an email.
The fire chief of Morden, Andy Thiessen, says that he recently asked his city to contribute a tank truck and firefighters to the fire fight near Flin Flon, man, and believes that it is because the communities in his district of mutual aid of Pembina Triangle also have tanks and oil trucks in which they could trust the event of a local fire.
Morden, Plum Coulee and St. Jean Baptiste sent six firefighters, a tank truck with a load capacity of 4,000 gallons, along with a truck on Tuesday, said Thiessen. A replacement team will change them after approximately one week.
Their equipment will focus on noise infrastructure to release firefighters specialized in forest fires, he said.
“We can all take care of our own communities most of the time, but sometimes we need additional labor, additional equipment, and that is where the mutual aid system works, and now this is extended outside our borders where we are helping … North Manitoba,” he said.
“Everything depends [on] What the province is asking at that time. “
The Mutual Aid districts of the Boyne and Pembina Triangle river are among many others that have contributed equipment and firefighters this season:
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After four of its members helped in Pukatawagan for four days, the carberry fire department North Cypress -Langford says that a person went home, while the other three, along with a fire truck, went to the Flin Flon area on Monday. “We would not have sent [an] Apparatus and personnel if we did not have adequate fire coverage at home, “Fire Chief Clyde McCallum said in an email.
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The Oakland/Wawanese fire department says that it currently has two firefighters and a fire truck that helps in the Flin Flon forest fire.
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Two firefighters from the Selkirk fire department and their bomb truck are responding to Lynn Lake Wildfire until the end of the week, a city spokesman said Thursday.
With five firefighters from the municipality of Deloraine -winchester sent to Flin Flon, he has issued a prohibition of all open fires, fireworks and motorized field trips “because we have a fairly large portion of the mountains of the turtles in our area, firefighters Jerry Redden said in a message on Wednesday.
“With all the resources in the north, we felt that it was better to do it, since we would probably be only on our own if a fire began there,” Redden wrote.
As of Monday, Around 200 firefighters They were on the floor in Flin Flon helping to fight the fire.
A spokesman for the city of Winnipeg says that so far he has not received a request from firefighters or paramedics.
An emergency management center is needed, says the boss
Two forest fires continue to threaten Pimicikamak Cree Nation, also known as Cross Lake, more than 500 kilometers north of Winnipeg.
Chordon Bluesky Chief of Brokenhead Ojibway Nation in southern Manitoba says his community plans to send four firefighters to help protect Cross Lake and Pimicikamak on Saturday.
They will join dozens of American, Manitoba Wildfire Service and local firefighters who are being mobilized to the region, according to a Facebook post of the head of Pimicikamak, David Monias.
“If we have the ability to help, I think we and many other first nations are doing everything possible to do it,” said Bluesky on Thursday.
He is not aware of a formal agreement between his first nation and the nearby rural municipalities, such as the provincial agreements of mutual aid of the provincial municipal law, although Breakhead Ojibway collaborated with them in the Libau fire this spring, with additional support from Sagkeeng First Nation, Bluesky said.
Brokenhead’s South Beach Casino Resort obtains fire protection through the rural municipality of St. Clements, “but out of that, there is nothing instead,” he said.
“I don’t think there is a coordinated effort, and I think that is the biggest problem in Manitoba is to obtain that mutual help and the understanding of how it works.”
Bluesky said he hopes to explore that conservation, along with the need for an emergency management center, as climate change worsens.
“We could be doing much of this emergency response if we could do it in collaboration,” said Bluesky.
“The most important thing is coordination and unite things, and that is where I think many people frustrate a little, because it is really difficult, especially at the scale we are talking about today.”
Fire departments in southern Manitoba are responding to the call to help northern communities to save their homes and forest fire lands.
