Helicopter pilots, heavy machinery operators and railway workers are some of the people on the front lines of the Manitoba wildfire fight.
Manitoba remains under a provincewide state of emergency as 29 wildfires continue to burn in the east, west and north, 10 of which are out of control. Those fires have forced 21,000 people from their homes and 27 communities are under mandatory evacuation order.
Hundreds of unsung heroes, like Clifford Nabess, are working to contain the flames.
Nabess and seven of his colleagues at the Keewatin Railway Company have been going in and out of the wildfires for days trying to save 16 train bridges that are essential for transporting people and goods to Pukatawagan, also known as Mathias Colomb Cree Nation and Sherridon, a small community north of The Pas, which is about 630 kilometres northwest of Winnipeg.
“It’s the only really lifeline besides the airport that gets to the community of Pukatawagan,” Nabess said.
Their job is to refuel water trucks that have been keeping the bridges from burning. He said sometimes the fire is so close he can feel it.
“You can feel the heat right through the side of the windows. There’s a few times we’ve drove through fire where it’s actually raining fire on the window,” said Nabess.
He and his colleagues know their lives are in danger every time they go to work, but if they don’t and a bridge burns down, it could take two months to repair.
The Sherridon wildfire is out of control and more than 300,000 hectares big, according to the province. Nabess estimates between 80 and 100 kilometres of forest has been destroyed around the two remote Northern Manitoba communities.
“It’s very bad … for people that will come back to work later this year, it’s gonna look totally different because there’s nothing there.”
For miles and miles, all you can see is bare land and total destruction, he said.
Rob Brunken spent 22 years as part of the United States Marine Corps. After retiring, he got his pilot’s licence and now works for Columbia Helicopters in Aurora, Oregon. When he and his colleagues heard Manitoba needed critical air support and manpower, they stepped up.
“We kind of showed up … and have just been trying to help wherever we can,” Brunken said on the tarmac at The Pas airport.
Four pilots, eight mechanics and two helicopters equipped with 1,200-gallon water buckets, from Columbia Helicopters, arrived in The Pas on May 30 and were ready for deployment the following day. Brunken said they have been working non-stop, but smoke and poor visibility have been challenging.
“This is one of the worst weather conditions that I’ve seen, said Brunken.
“The smoke just lays in. You got some pretty heavy easterly winds and it’s just been pushing, it’s been fuelling the fire and it has been pushing our visibility to kind of a minimum,” he said.
Brunken said you can’t put out a wildfire with a helicopter, but you can coach the flames toward ground crews who are ready to snuff them out.
“We’re not like seeing a bunch of flame and saying, ‘Oh, let’s go put that out’,” said Brunken.
“The ground crews are really what makes the big difference. So what we do is we kind of get instructions like, ‘Hey, the fire’s heading this way, can you guys kind of help coach it over to our ground crews?’ And that’s really what we’re trying to do,” he said.
The helicopters also provide air support for heavy machine operators like Gary Lajambe.
Lajambe and his team use bulldozers to tear up the earth, and break up the treeline to try and prevent the fires from spreading. They call that a fire guard, or fire break.
“You make a just like a road allowance and then when the fire gets there it’s got to kind of stop. It’s got no fuel,” said Lajambe.
He said the only time it goes over a fire guard is when there are strong winds that push the flames into nearby trees.
Lajambe has never seen the forest this dry. He said normally in the spring there’s a lot more moisture in the land. He said this year, when the bulldozers push the trees, dust comes off them.
“I’ve really never seen much of that throughout the years. So it’s dry, it’s really dry,” he said.
Lajambe said unless Manitoba gets a lot of rain, there could be a lot more wildfires this summer and fall.
