I'm really split on this as there are a couple of key questions and priorities that need to be established first:
1) is this just wildfire or all hazard response. It's similar, but often different training and requires additional infrastructure/vehicle/equipment response than simple wildfires do. For example in 2022 were the highways damaged in BC due to wildfires or was it the rain/flood events in part due to wildfire earlier in the season that caused the infrastructure/travel breakdowns.
2) is this seasonal or year round. Hate to say it but we haven't had a month off wildfires in quite a long time locally and if you think community evacuations have issues in summer try evacuating a community in December due to a fast spreading fire.
3) Why are you fighting the fire? What values are you trying to protect or is it just Fire = bad.
4) If the fire is being actioned due to risk to timber values or watersheds or wildlife....that a provincial responsibility. So it should be the province leading the charge on protecting the resources and not the federal government (
Natural Resources Acts - Wikipedia.)
5) Whose tactics are to be used. Frankly each jurisdiction uses manpower and aircraft differently around the country due to cost/terrain/values/politics and resource availability. Add in a pool of people under Federal uniform and it changes again. My full and utter respect to those members of the CAF who assisted fighting fires...but its a different set up and resource usages of staff than I'm used to.
6) Is this just crews? or supervision? or Incident Management Teams? ICS works off of a rule of 7 situation where each person can have up to 7 subordinates. A unit crew leader has 4 sub-leaders who each supervise firefighters....and in turn will report to a Task Force Leader -> Division Supervisor -> Branch Director - Operations Chief -> Incident Commander (fire situation and needs will shrink or expand this reporting chain as needed). The point I'm trying to make is it's not enough to have a bunch of Privates but you need the Corporals, Sergeants, Warrant Officers, and multiple officers to make this effective...and you only gain that through experience.
7) what training standard to be used...there's no national standard for what experience needs and currently each province/Parks Canada conduct most of the training independently and then through the CIFFC office recognize each provinces certifications as equal to their own level X. This is slowly changing and there are some national/international level courses out there but they are rare.
8) who is paying for it all?
9) 5-10k national force? That is a HUGE amount of capacity anywhere in the world...
-PEI is up to 13 firefighters/staff last I heard. That's if every trained person leaves the office. But I use them to show the small end of the scale here in Canada. vs. BC Wildfire Services I think has the largest crew capacity in the country...there are ~1250 firefighters split between 30 unit crews and 162 Initial Attack Crews
- the United States Forest Service has approximately 115 hotshot crews...that's ~2600 firefighters for the nation. Add in their other crews and they are currently at 8638 wildland firefighters (all classes/roles) out of 11,300 authorized strength. Wildland Firefighting Workforce | US Forest Service.
- I've used those two organizations as I've been on several wildfires here in Canada with 1000+ personal on them. It shows how significant a major fire like that is anywhere in North America or the world for that matter.
10) We already have a number of national level IMT's. Can Task Force 2, HUSCAR, and then volunteer groups like Team RUBICON raise a question is the solution maybe to expand those supports rather than create new systems. Unfortunately many of the issues affecting these organizations also are similar to the Reserves and there is not process to allow for employee or employer compensation if deployed.
www.aptnnews.ca
globalnews.ca
www.cantf2.com
