The 2023 wildfire season was one the worst in Canadian History. Over 6,500 wildfires were reported across the country and burned over 18 million hectares of land overtaking the country’s previous record of 7.6 million hectares by a large margin. One province that had a particularly devastating wildfire season is Alberta. As of October 2023, there had been over 1,000 wildfires reported in the province just this year which burned over 2.2 million hectares of land causing millions of dollars’ worth of damages to homes, businesses, and institutions. Thousands of people were displaced. Indigenous communities in Northern Ontario have sent the most vulnerable community members away in buses to Southern Ontario to escape the smoke.
Unfortunately, the 2024 season is shaping up to be just as active. Additional resources are needed to contain these fires. Ontario firefighters as well as backstopped firefighters from other jurisdictions are responding however there is a chronic shortage of apparatus and equipment. GlobalMedic has previously launched programs in response to Canadian wildfires including in British Columbia and Alberta. GlobalMedic is working with our sister agency, GlobalFire, to create an immediate resolution to the shortage of equipment and make resources available where they are needed.
Ensuring that rural and volunteer fire departments have the resources needed to effectively respond to wildfires, is a critical step in maintaining control of Canada’s wildfire season. Personnel can be requested and reassigned from other areas of the province or country, and additional support can be brought in on the administrative and coordination side of the response. All of those options will have a restricted level of impact however if there is not a corresponding availability of firefighting equipment to be utilized.
GlobalMedic is working with rural and volunteer fire departments to coordinate the timely delivery of additional firefighting equipment to bolster their available resources. By making additional resources available to these smaller departments, we are able to help them increase their capacity to respond to wildfires in not only their coverage areas but those of neighbouring departments as well. Provision of more equipment like fire skids means departments can be proactive about their response planning and adaptive as the season progresses. All of this ultimately helps to minimize the damage caused by wildfires and the resulting impact it can have on communities in Canada.
Fire Skids
One of the ways GlobalMedic is helping bolster the the capacity of smaller fire departments is through the provision of fire skids. Each of these fire skids gives the ability for a department to turn a pick-up truck or utility vehicle into a small fire truck. Each skid is equipped with a 1,000-litre holding tank which can be filled with water. The units also have a pump and hoses attached. The pump is able to pressurize the water to create the high-pressure water stream required for fighting fires. These units are self-contained and include all the components required meaning that the departments can hit the ground running and get them operational immediately. Since these units function by adding to pick-up trucks and utility vehicles, they are also incredibly agile. These units can be moved into areas that might be inaccessible to full sized fire trucks, stopping the progression of a fire before it moves to a less remote area.
To date, GlobalMedic has delivered 156 fire skids in British Columbia, Alberta, Yukon, Saskatchewan, and the Northwest Territories.
