B.C. firefighters told investigators they feared deaths were ‘inevitable' during 2023 wildfire season

Globe and Mail

4 days ago

Wildland firefighters battling the worst fire season in British Columbia's history told internal investigators they've become so overwhelmed in recent years they worry fireline deaths are becoming 'inevitable,' documents obtained by The Globe and Mail show.
Three documents, called Facilitated Learning Analyses (FLAs), examined the 2023 entrapment of five Brazilian firefighters as well as the deaths that year of two young firefighters during B.C.'s fire season, which burned 28,000 square kilometres, forced 48,000 people to evacuate, and killed six firefighters. Most of the contents of the FLAs are previously unreported.
The documents include comments from dozens of unnamed firefighters who were on the scene of the incidents and highlight in their own words serious internal worries about the BC Wildfire Service's readiness to face the kind of long, brutal seasons that climate change will make increasingly common in western forests.
Firefighters were quoted in one FLA as saying the workload in fire seasons like 2023 is 'too much, and this hinders proper training.' Others highlighted concerns about crew-level turnover and inexperience on the fireline in recent years making their jobs more dangerous.
'I had a feeling someone was going to die this year,' said one firefighter.
FLAs are internal documents created voluntarily by the BC Wildfire Service to help its staff learn from bad outcomes by giving voice to the firefighters who went through them. They do not assign blame or make specific recommendations, though policy recommendations from other sources are sometimes included.
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While the FLA documents can be obtained through a lengthy freedom of information process, critical comments from staff are often redacted. The Globe and Mail obtained unredacted copies of the reports from sources within the fire service who said they wanted the public to better understand how dangerous their jobs have become.
The BC Wildfire Service declined The Globe's request for an interview, and instead sent an unattributed written statement.
'We absolutely need to do more to support wildland firefighters as we grow firefighting efforts,' the service said in the statement.
In each of the three incidents, the documents flag inexperience and overwork as contributing factors that made mistakes more likely.
The FLA that examined the entrapment of five Brazilian firefighters during a hastily executed backburn on the Adams Lake wildfire in the North Shuswap region in August, 2023, describes the fire service as being 'in a general state of overwhelm.'
Backburns are a firefighting tactic that uses intentional fire to control or slow down an out-of-control wildfire. The Brazilian crew was part of a contingent of thousands of foreign firefighters brought into Canada to help overstretched provincial fire services.
The incident management team in charge of the Adams Lake fire was also struggling to oversee two other fires, one of which was complex enough to have required its own dedicated team, but none were available, the document says.
The nine-kilometre-long backburn was lit hours before a cold front was forecast to create catastrophically high winds, the document says, and a cascade of safety failures followed.
Key themes identified in the FLAs are also highlighted in WorkSafeBC investigation reports. The investigation into the Brazilians' entrapment found there was no written burn plan, and no certified ignitions specialist present to monitor the burn, despite government policy requiring one.
The majority of the B.C. ground crew involved were in their first or second year as firefighters, and while all had undergone what the wildfire service says is the required level of training, they had never done a backburn on an active wildfire before.
Documents show firefighters on the ground lacked adequate lookouts, escape routes, communication and safety zones, and were not given a proper briefing.
Firefighters raised 'red flags,' the WorkSafe report found. But despite the concerns, the firefighters said 'they felt pressure to complete the task and had faith … that appropriate planning had been conducted,' when in fact it had not.
When the wind shifted, the fire swept across their lines. Firefighters were forced into a chaotic retreat, only to find their escape route cut off. Several trucks full of firefighters were forced to drive off-road around a large fire.
A language barrier hampered co-ordination with the 20 Brazilian firefighters assigned to the backburn, only two of whom spoke English. In the chaos, five of them were trapped by flames and forced to shelter in their pickup truck for hours. To improve their chances of survival, they used flaming sticks and branches to burn away grasses and shrubs around their truck before sheltering inside.
According to the documents, multiple people involved believed at the time that all five firefighters had been killed.
The Brazilians were rescued early the next morning by two senior BC Wildfire Service firefighters who had to cut their way past fallen trees with chainsaws to reach them.
'This was a highly complex and highly dynamic environment and the safety challenges that have been identified after the incident itself through the thorough review were not necessarily apparent or available to decision-makers during the event,' the wildfire service's statement said.
The BC Wildfire Service has been in compliance with orders related to the WorkSafeBC investigation as of Dec. 6, 2024, after taking steps to update processes and procedures for planned ignitions, the service said in a statement.
The FLAs investigating the deaths of two firefighters last year also highlighted how a lack of resources and overworked crews made their jobs more dangerous.
Devyn Gale, 19, was killed by a burning cedar tree on July 13, 2023, at the Jordan River fire outside her hometown of Revelstoke, B.C. In the weeks before her death, the zone where her crew was based was 'understaffed and overworked,' according to the FLA that examined her death.
The day before she died, Ms. Gale's crew had been dealing with the aftermath of a fire entrapment on a different blaze where at least one person was seriously burned.
Firefighters questioned being deployed again so quickly after such a traumatic event.
'Should there not be some downtime between getting burnt over and getting sent back out there?' said one firefighter quoted in the FLA.
According to the documents, crews also worried that public pressure to suppress visible fires meant deploying them to fires that could be safely left to burn.
In its statement, the BC Wildfire Service said that decisions about which fires to fight are governed by detailed fire management plans that consider landscape, potential fuels, recent wildfire history and risks to the public.
The FLA praised Ms. Gale's crewmates' response to her injuries, describing their actions as flawless even as several endured burns themselves while trying to save her.
Two weeks later, Zak Muise died while working for a contractor helping to battle a blaze in northeast B.C. when an all-terrain utility vehicle he was riding in crashed over a steep embankment and rolled, pinning him beneath it.
Neither Mr. Muise nor the vehicle's driver were wearing helmets or seat belts, as required by safety policies.
The FLA found that by the end of July, wildfire fighting staff and contractors across B.C. had been deployed many times and had been exposed to many safety hazards, likely contributing to a casual approach to safety measures such as helmets and seat belts. UTVs were sometimes not driven with caution, and investigators heard staff were reluctant to report safety concerns, the FLA found.
'Extended, repetitive exposure to high-risk scenarios is known to lead to risk normalization,' the FLA notes.
Membership data provided by the BC General Employees' Union, which represents wildfire service firefighters, show that for the 2023 fire season, 80 per cent of crew members had fewer than 12 months experience on the job. In 2024 that number improved to 72 per cent. The union's numbers show in 2023, 59 per cent of crew leaders had less than 12 months experience leading a crew, and that number rose to 61 per cent this past summer.
The wildfire service says promotion and the creation of around 177 new crew member and crew leader positions account for most of that experience gap.
In its statement, the wildfire service noted its efforts to convert roughly 60 per cent of its staff to full-time, year-round positions has temporarily contributed to a loss of leadership experience on the front line, as veteran firefighters are promoted.
To address this challenge, the ministry noted it is boosting internal training and supporting the creation of a new wildfire training and education centre at Thompson Rivers University.
Extreme fire behaviour, like what occurred repeatedly throughout the summer of 2023, 'will undoubtedly happen again' and should be recognized 'as a natural disaster like a tornado or flood, rather than something that can be controlled or stopped,' the statement said.
'The BC Wildfire Service alone will not be able to address adverse impacts of climate change and the threat of wildfire, let alone other hazards.'