Dunavan Morris-Janzen’s scariest day as a firefighter so far was when he and his 18-member crew were moved off of the fire for their own safety because strong winds came up.
“We went out into an open field, a safety zone,” told the Star in a phone interview about his work fighting a wildfire near 150 Mile House, “and we see the column and we begin to realize how the wind is beginning to feed the fire. It is incredible. This column of smoke is so large and it is blowing warm air all the way up into the clouds and creating its own clouds from it.”
There in the safety zone the gravity of his role really hit home. The toughest part of fighting this fire, he realized, is not the 12-to-16 hour days of hard labour in the heat and smoke. It’s the feeling of responsibility for the lives of others.
“It is mentally challenging, being so close to an entire town that was evacuated and trying to understand what is going on, and how this is affecting them,” he said.
“Firefighters are relied upon as the ones to rectify this — that is much more mentally exhausting than any of the physical labour. Really understanding that this is serious, this is real.”
The 20-year-old grew up in Nelson and in the fall will begin his third year of the Arts and Sciences Honours Program at McMaster University in Hamilton. He’s considering a career in health care.
“We heard on the radio it was threatening structures and running along the highway, and that was a crazy moment where I really began to realize we are not just cowboys in the bush, like this is impactful for other people. That was a turning moment for me.”
He said he has never felt physically in danger because the campaign is so well organized.
“We were very careful and we would always discuss escape routes and safety zones, so I never felt that anyone on my crew was threatened.”
On another challenging day, his crew was out until after midnight, working in the dark, a 17-hour day, not because of the fire worsening, but rather because it had died down.
“We had a window of opportunity where the behaviour was decreased and we had gained more ground, and it was a good time to work, and so we took the opportunity.”
The camaraderie among the crew keeps him going.
“It feels like a huge sports team and we have a coach and a goal and we are all connected through this goal. The energy level of the crew is what allows you to keep going, you are not alone doing this hard work by yourself. Someone is 100 feet away from you doing the same thing, and that connection allows you be part of something bigger than yourself.”
As might be expected, the air is bad, and everyone coughs a lot.
“You can barely see the sun. You know how it looks through smoke like that, like a bloody moon kind of? Trees, smoke.”
The main tool of Morris-Janzen’s new trade is a hose and water.
“The bread and butter of what would do is establish control lines with heavy machinery, basically push through a road through the forest, to hold the fire, quite a ways away from the fire, and along this we would run hose which would be from a pumping source like a lake or swamp. And from this control line, if the fire was close enough, and the behaviour was small enough, we would put direct water on it and begin to like cool it down, or if it was far away we would burn the chunk of the forest between us and the fire, a controlled burn.”
Morris-Janzen says despite the mental exhaustion, he’s been happy to help out. And he says fire has taught him a few things.
“Fire is a dynamic environment and so we as firefighters have to be dynamic as well, to adapt and change with it. So that night we stayed later, that was not part of the plan but that was demanded of us.”
There are life lessons in this, he says.
“What you expect is going to happen might not be really going to happen. You expect a thing to be a certain way and then it doesn’t end up being that way. So we should just accept that unknown and focus on the task at hand.”