Support workers essential to B.C.’s wildfire fights amid historical season

The days of fighting wildfires are long and exhausting, so when crews return to camp, the last thing they want to do is search for a place to sleep or something to eat.

The days of fighting wildfires are long and exhausting, so when crews return to camp, the last thing they want to do is search out a place to sleep or find something to eat.

Behind the firefighters battling what is B.C.’s most destructive wildfire season is an army of more than 1,400 contracted support staff, doing everything from first aid to sandwich-making.

Among them is Susanne Callihoo, who manages the Takla incident camp in north-central B.C. for the contract service agency Horizon North.

Her job, she explained, is to ensure the camp runs smoothly, that fire crews have all their essential needs met and are as “comfortable” as possible when they finish a shift on the fire lines.

“They’re away from home … so we want to keep them well fed and housed,” she said.

The small camp has a staff of about eight workers, which includes a chef, cooks, a health staffer, a janitor, a maintenance worker and a designated sandwich-maker whose sole job is to ensure each firefighter is equipped with about four sandwiches per day.

Shawn McKerry, a former wildland firefighter in Alberta, knows what these people need for support. Now the dean of Lakeland College emergency training centre in Vermilion, Alta., McKerry previously helped battle some of Alberta’s most ferocious and historic wildfires.

That included the 2011 Slave Lake wildfire that destroyed more than 400 buildings and the 2016 Fort McMurray wildfire that forced nearly 90,000 people to flee Canada’s oilsands region and reduced thousands of homes to ash.