Black bears, moose, woodpeckers, lynx and beavers – just some of the wildlife Tim Wishart and Nick Whatley encountered on their recent deployment to Canada to fight fires.

The Cohuna men were part of a team of 46 Victorians from Forest Fire Management Victoria and the Country Fire Authority which spent 35 days providing relief to exhausted Canadian fire crews fighting the Kimiwan complex near Peace River in Alberta. They joined crews from other parts of Australia, New Zealand, United States, South Africa, France, Chile, Costa Rica, Portugal and Spain. 

Tim said he was excited to be part of Victoria’s first taskforce to join the emergency response, which flew out on May 26 and returned on June 30. “I have been hoping for an international trip for years,” he said, “so I was really excited. I was somewhat proud to represent Victoria, and to lead the first taskforce from Victoria.”

Tim’s taskforce of 20 Victorians was located in a flat, swampy area with millions of hectares of spruce and aspen (poplar) forests, and very remote. The weather was cold at night with daytime tops of about 23 degrees.

The team completed a 16-day shift followed by two days of rest before a final 14-day shift. Besides a little socialising with Albertan crews, U.S. Hotshot crews and other Australians, 14-hour shifts meant the members were physically exhausted. “We would eat, shower and bed, because we were exhausted. We’d lay down in a bright tent for the night,” said Tim.

The brightness Tim refers to is due to their proximity to the Arctic Circle, causing the sky to stay relatively light much of the night. “We were there for the longest day, so it actually never got dark. It was sort of twilight between midnight and 2 in the morning, then the sun would be up again. We were in tents, so it was light all the time. It was a bit hard to sleep.”

Tim’s role as taskforce leader saw him manage the taskforce of on-ground firefighters, who, he says were popular due to their competency in ignition, backburning and helicopter work, and were involved in supervising bulldozers, setting up pumps and hose lays, and a lot of backburning.  

“Because the nature of the forest is very wet, swampy ground, transport in was with snow mobiles or tracked vehicles, we couldn’t drive anywhere. We were airlifted in by helicopters a lot of the time.”

Base camp and the air base were in a farmer’s lucerne paddock and consisted of portable facilities including kitchen, laundry, toilets and showers. Small tents dotted the paddock and helicopters flew in and out.

An orientation session upon arrival instructed the crews on wildlife identification and behaviour and what they should do around them.

“Bears were a risk. All the local crews over there carried big knives on their belts – so most of our crew purchased knives for safety.

“All we were told was to keep our distance where we could and we learned some of their behavioural aspects, but basically, you’re on your own if one was going to attack you. I was a bit nervous. Cougars were there as well, but we didn’t see any of them.”

Helicopter pilots would advise if bears were nearby.

“We had bears get into our pumps and jerry cans at night and bite holes in them and cart them off into the forest. We had to deal with bears a lot. We had people doing backburning and bears would wander out and we’d have to scare them away at times.”

Tim says he saw around a hundred black bears, some wolves, lynx, squirrels, woodpeckers, coyotes, moose, deer and plenty of beavers.

It wasn’t just the wildlife that kept the firefighters on their toes. “The area we were in was North America’s richest oil and gas field, so there were oil and gas facilities throughout the forest – oil pumps, oil trucks, so we were working around the gas and oil facilities the whole time.”

Despite the long hours and physical work, Tim has walked away with an experience of a lifetime and can tick that experience off his list. Once home, both he and Nick had some very well deserved time off recovering before returning to their regular work.

“I was pretty fatigued and sore,” said Tim, “but I had a really good time. We bonded as a crew and had heaps of laughs and really enjoyed it. It was fantastic, but just physically fatiguing.”

This article appeared in The Koondrook and Barham Bridge Newspaper, 13 July 2023.