Southern Manitoba firefighters drive pumper truck 15 hours to help in Lynn Lake
'You could see the flames up in the crowns of the trees, and then you could hear it, and then it was on you'
Fire departments in southern Manitoba are answering the call to help northern communities save their homes and lands.
The volunteer fire chief in Morris, Man., Trevor Thiessen, and volunteer firefighter Shelby Fehr, who is a full-time paramedic, helped respond to the 71,000-hectare wildfire near Lynn Lake and Marcel Colomb First Nation last week and over the weekend, alongside local crews and firefighters from Brandon.
"It was intense," Thiessen said.
Thiessen and Fehr drove their pumper tanker 15 hours from Morris to Lynn Lake and stayed there for five days, he said, helping to set up sprinklers on homes, the hospital and school, where flames came dangerously close.
Fehr and Thiessen were there when flames blew into the edge of town on Sunday, an experience Fehr described as "gruelling" and "surreal."
"You could see it in the distance. You could see the smoke, and then you could see the flames up in the crowns of the trees, and then you could hear it, and then it was on you," Thiessen said in an interview on Wednesday, two days after returning home.
Thiessen described the pumper tanker, which can carry and pump 2,500 gallons of water, as a "very key" piece in the response.
"We were able to stage somewhere and actually pump water for quite some time before we had to refill, which was really crucial," he said.
"The water system was right to the max with the hydrants running, running sprinklers and whatnot, so that was really beneficial to have."
In an email to CBC News, Fehr said although she was on holiday time during the response, she'd do it again in a "heartbeat."
Their deployment left the Morris fire department's main fire engine, ladder truck and 20 other volunteer firefighters back in Morris, which Thiessen says left the town well protected while they were away.
If a fire had ignited that they weren't able to handle, the fire department Morris would have been able to draw from resources in their mutual aid district of Boyne River, which includes fire departments in Carman and Portage la Prairie.
No equivalent system in northern Manitoba
Southern Manitoba has 17 mutual aid districts that share resources in emergencies.
Northern Manitoba doesn't have an equivalent reciprocal response system, due to geographic barriers and long travel distances, according to the province's website. However, it has three northern training districts that ensure training programs are available to communities in the region.
Manitoba's Office of the Fire Commissioner and Emergency Management Organization work together to make requests to local fire departments, a provincial spokesperson said in an email on Wednesday.
Morden fire Chief Andy Thiessen says his city was recently asked to contribute a pumper tanker and firefighters to the fire fight near Flin Flon, Man., and he believes it's because communities in his Pembina Triangle mutual aid district also have pumper tankers and tankers they could rely on in the event of a local fire.
Morden, Plum Coulee and St. Jean Baptiste sent six firefighters, a pumper tanker with a carrying capacity of 4,000 gallons, along with a truck on Tuesday, Thiessen said. A replacement team will switch them out after about a week.
His crews will focus on dousing infrastructure to free up firefighters specialized in forest fires, he said.
"We can all take care of our own communities most of the time, but sometimes we need extra manpower, extra equipment, and that's where the mutual aid system works, and now this is just expanded outside of our borders where we're helping … northern Manitoba," he said.
"All depends [on] what the province is asking for at the time."
The Boyne River and Pembina Triangle mutual aid districts are among many that have contributed equipment and firefighters this season.
The City of Brandon has five firefighter paramedics assisting in Lynn Lake until Sunday, chief of emergency services Terry Parlow said Wednesday.
After four members of the Carberry North Cypress–Langford Fire Department helped in Pukatawagan for four days, one person went home while the other three, along with a fire engine, went to the Flin Flon area on Monday.
"We would not have sent [an] apparatus and personnel if we didn't have proper fire coverage back at home," fire Chief Clyde McCallum said in an email.
The Oakland/Wawanesa Fire Department has two firefighters and a fire truck assisting in the Flin Flon wildfire.
Two firefighters from the Selkirk Fire Department and its pumper truck are helping fight the Lynn Lake wildfire until the end of the week, a city spokesperson said Thursday.
With five firefighters from the Municipality of Deloraine-Winchester sent to Flin Flon, it has issued a ban on all open fires, fireworks and motorized backcountry travel "because we have a fairly large portion of the Turtle Mountains in our area," fire Chief Jerry Redden said in a message on Wednesday.
"With all the resources up north, we felt it best to do so as we would probably be pretty much on our own if a fire got started in there," Redden wrote.
As of Monday, about 200 firefighters were on the ground in Flin Flon helping battle the blaze.
A City of Winnipeg spokesperson said so far, it has not received a request for firefighters or paramedics.
Emergency management centre needed, chief says
Two wildfires continue to threaten Pimicikamak Cree Nation, also known as Cross Lake, more than 500 kilometres north of Winnipeg.
Chief Gordon Bluesky 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'll join dozens of American, Manitoba Wildfire Service and local firefighters who are being mobilized to the region, according to a Facebook post by Pimicikamak Chief David Monias.
"If we have the ability to help, I believe ourselves and many other First Nations are trying our best to do so," Bluesky said Thursday.
He isn't aware of a formal agreement between his First Nation and nearby rural municipalities, like the provincial mutual aid agreements outlined under the provincial Municipal Act, although Brokenhead Ojibway collaborated with them on the Libau fire this spring, with additional support from Sagkeeng First Nation, Bluesky said.
Brokenhead's South Beach Casino Resort gets fire protection through the Rural Municipality of St. Clements, "but outside of that, there isn't anything in place," he said.
"I don't believe that generally there is a co-ordinated effort, and I think that's the biggest issue that we have in Manitoba is just getting that mutual aid and the understanding of how that works."
Bluesky said he hopes to explore that conservation, along with the need for an emergency management centre, as climate change worsens.
"We could be doing a lot of this emergency response if we could do it collaboratively," Bluesky said.
"The biggest thing is co-ordination and bringing things together, and that's where I think a lot of people get a little bit frustrated, because it is really difficult, especially at the scale that we're talking about today."
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