It has been a record-breaking wildfire season in Canada this year, with hundreds of thousands of hectares burned and countless numbers of people forced from their homes. And while most of the population heads in the opposite direction, firefighters head straight toward the danger, risking their own lives to help protect us from these raging infernos.
On Thursday, a 19-year-old B.C. firefighter was killed after being pinned under a falling tree near Revelstoke. She has been identified by her brother as Devyn Gale, a former member of the B.C. gymnastics team and a star pupil at her high school.
Nolan Gale said in an Instagram post that his sister was “kind and thoughtful,” and he’s grateful to have grown up alongside her.
“Devyn was an amazing sister,” Mr. Gale wrote. “She was smarter and better at what she did than she gave herself credit for. She truly didn’t deserve this.”
Revelstoke RCMP said in a news release that Ms. Gale was working on brush-clearing in a remote area when the accident occurred. They said the death is now under investigation by police, the B.C. Coroners Service, WorkSafeBC and the B.C. Wildfire Service.
Prime Minister Justin Trudeau said the death was “heartbreaking,” offering condolences to the firefighter’s family, friends and fellow firefighters.
Ms. Gale’s death is the fourth firefighter fatality linked to B.C. wildfires since 2010. Sixty-year-old John Phare was killed in 2015 while working on a blaze on the Sunshine Coast, north of Vancouver, and two Conair airtanker pilots, Tim Whiting and Brian Tilley, died when their plane went down south of Lytton in July, 2010.
As of Friday, there are 357 active wildfires in B.C., over half of which remain out of control.
Lightning is forecast through Saturday in many parts of Northern B.C. and the southern and southeastern Interior, but Environment Canada is calling for showers and more seasonal temperatures to start next week.
B.C. Emergency Management and Climate Change Readiness Minister Bowinn Ma said in a statement Friday that conditions remain very dangerous. She urged residents to take the time to create an emergency plan and pack a grab-and-go bag.
“We are anticipating continued extreme fire behaviour and all of us need to do our part to prevent the situation from becoming any worse, no matter where you are in the province,” her statement says.
The province has already requested 1,000 additional foreign firefighters to join 160 from Mexico and the United States already in B.C., as well as more federal resources, Ms. Ma said Thursday.
B.C. has also been dealing with a continuing drought that has made the province more susceptible to wildfire. On Thursday, the province ordered the oil and gas industry to temporarily stop diverting water to operations in one northeast district, and is now considering banning water use by other industries in other parts.
This is the weekly Western Canada newsletter written by B.C. Editor Wendy Cox and Alberta Bureau Chief Mark Iype. If you’re reading this on the web, or it was forwarded to you from someone else, you can sign up for it and all Globe newsletters here.
Wendy Cox