Worried About a Wildfire Entrapment/Burn-over Tragedy

There is smoke in the air and I am worried about a wildfire entrapment/burn-over tragedy.

I spent the spring providing wildfire training to a variety of people that live, work and/or play in rural and remote BC. Participants represented a variety of industries, rural residents, first nations communities, organized, semi-organized and un-organized response groups and individuals.

At least one participant in every session had a story of a wildfire entrapment / burn-over close call. The circumstances and severity of these stories varied greatly but the common experience of them all is having a wildfire go around, or over, them close enough to cause anxiety, discomfort, minor injuries and substantial damage to structures, vehicles or machines with no organized help available.

These stories, when combined with my personal experiences (see link below) , indicate to me that a major tragedy is highly likely in the near future.

Catching up on 7 years of Entrapment Incident Reports Involving Heavy Equipment

If you live, work and/or play in rural and remote BC for any length of time you will have an interaction with a wildfire. Even if you have taken the BC Wildfire S100 I don’t feel it covers Entrapment Avoidance and Burn-over Survival adequately.

Fire seasons are more variable and fire behavior is more erratic. Response agencies may be unable to respond as quickly, or to the standard, we hope for. If a wildfire occurs in rural or remote BC we may be making crucial decisions on our own for an extended period of time. In a couple of recent cases I witnessed the Trans-Canada and Coquihalla Highways remain open when responders were overwhelmed. Traffic was driving through heavy smoke with intense fire burning on both sides of the road and just hoping for the best. It is 100% luck there wasn’t a tragedy.

To try and help people stay safe I have developed a four-hour Wildfire Safety Awareness presentation and handbook and have presented it to a variety of groups. It has been well received.

The session includes detailed, up to date information on Wildfire Entrapment Avoidance and Burn-over Survival. It is based on my training, research, and personal experiences.

Fresh off the press. PDF for download onto your device of choice.

I have found that when dealing with wildfires I often only have a bad choice and a worse choice. This training is designed to give folks that find themselves in a tough spot some tools to make as good of a decision as possible.

Give me a call if you are interested.