Forest fires continue to rage in western Canada this summer, with firefighters risking their lives on the ground every day. Their working conditions are often difficult, and life isn't always rosy when the world is burning around you and you're constantly lacking the resources to fight it.

In Alberta, there are currently 122 wildfires including the 32,000 hectare Jasper Wildfire complex, which resulted in thousands of people being evacuated from the town of Jasper and the surrounding National Park recreation areas last week. 

In B.C., there are currently 349 wildfires burning, of which six are considered 'wildfires of note' because they actively threaten areas of human habitation. While the evacuation of Wells B.C., which North Star reported on last week, has been rescinded, 22 other evacuation orders remain in effect province-wide including the village of Slocan and the surrounding area in the West Kootenay region. 

To get a more in-depth look at the reasons for increasing wildfires and the working conditions for those who fight them, North Star spoke with Rob, an experienced wildland forest firefighter. He asked not use his real name or reveal his identity. 

A changing landscape and a changing job

"There's been an insane increase in the work," says Rob, who attributes the huge increase of wildfires in recent years to a combination of changing climate and the regime of forest management focused on securing the profits of B.C.'s big forest companies. "That's really where [the B.C. Wildfire Service] comes from."

"The priorities then were protecting timber, hydro infrastructure and maybe recreation areas. But now, the timber's nuked, it's still on the list, but now we're barely able to protect private property."

"[A few years ago] fires were, on average, much less crazy. Most of the fires we went to were just out in the bush. So yes, there's risks, like for any other bush worker—'don't fall out of the helicopter,' ' don't drop a tree on yourself', all that other stuff—but you don't have any of the stress of: 'oh yeah, and don't let the fire burn all these people's houses down, because they're all watching you right now'. There had been some moments like that before [...], but now it's every year." 

"The amount of times in the last three years that I've heard very experienced firefighters say 'that is the craziest fire activity I've ever seen' is incredible. Before, people would tell you about the fire they went to four years ago or something, now they don't even remember three years ago." 

"Privatisation and a highly precarious work model" 

While Rob speaks proudly of the role wildland firefighters play defending communities and responding to disaster on the front lines, he has concerns about the sustainability of the B.C. Wildfire Service in its current form.

"We've had so much turnover in the last 5 years because the fires are so crazy now, and it just blows people out. Even though people's final paycheque might seem like a good amount, it's just not worth it." 

He adds that for most people, fighting forest fires can't be a career, "because it was never really designed like that. It's pretty poorly paying, but because it's boom-bust, if you're willing to dedicate your life to just a few months every year… you can make a few bucks."

In return for a starting wage of $27/hour, the B.C. Wildfire Service asks a lot of its members. "Our base schedule is like a normal public servant, like 35 hours a week or something. But when we're on a fire its almost like there's no rules."

"Well, there are lots of rules, but they're not very restrictively applied, let's say. You can work 14 days in a row before you have to have a minimum two days off, more or less.  And you can work 16 hours, or even longer. Sometimes, we will work for 24 hours, but you can't do that for very long. Anyway, if we get a new fire, many times, we'll just work until we go home."

But that's not the only thing that makes this job difficult. "I find the most traumatic aspect of fire is the impact on home life. That's what I'm raising alarm bells about at work. And the cultural acceptance of it is really terrible."

"You hear people say things like 'Oh, I haven't seen my kid in a week', or, 'I just got back from a week at this fire, and they're sending me out at 5 am tomorrow, haha'.  It's not funny. I know that's how you stay tough, and in the game is you make some jokes about it, but its not okay." 

"And it's not just [under resourcing], it actually worse than that, because its actually the plan. It's not like 'oh fuck this happened'.  That was always the plan. And that's the part that's even worse." 

In response to the inadequate wages and working conditions of wildland firefighter's, their union, the B.C. Government Employees Union (BCGEU), initiated a campaign in 2023, calling for an overhaul of the compensation system and for firefighters to receive similar pensions to other public safety responders.

Rob points out that in addition to the precarious work model, the B.C. Wildfire Service has been organized in a way that allows private companies to profit off of the public service:

"In a sense, most of our sector is privatized, for wildland forest firefighting.  All that BC Wildfire provides is boots on the ground, people in red shirts. Then they provide the incident management team composed mostly of BC Wildfire people, and they provide some in-house logistics—basically, they set up tents."

"Everything else is private, all the equipment we use, all the heavy equipment, and aviation. Aviation is by far the biggest expense. It's obscene the amount of money that's spent on it." 

"If you're not used to how privatization works, which many workers aren't, they don't even think about it.  But then when you think about it, contractors do probably 50% of the work. And then we hire all of these contract firefighters too, through bands or companies."

Disaster response, a real need

In the context of a changing climate, escalating weather events and natural disasters, a comprehensive disaster response organization is badly needed. In three of the last four years, the Canadian military has been called in for wildfires in B.C. and Alberta. Rob imagines that the B.C. Wildfire Service could play that role with the right vision and resources:

"I feel like BC Wildfire could be morphed into a very robust organization that does all kinds of things, just an amazing service. Something like BC Search and Rescue Associations should just be completely subsumed by BC Wildfire, taking a patchwork of organizations [and organizing it centrally as a public service]. Then, they should be turned into a year round service where you're providing search and rescue, fire fighting, flood response, just becoming a disaster response service."