SUNDRE – As Alberta faces the distinct possibility of extreme drought heading into the warmer months following last year’s record-setting wildfire season, a multi-agency training scenario recently staged in Cochrane focused primarily on evacuating residents ahead of a fast-spreading forest fire.
But there were also some unanticipated wrenches thrown into the gears to keep responders on their toes and more prepared to handle unexpected and unrelated emergencies happening to unfold at the same time.
A contingent of nine Sundre Search and Rescue Association volunteers joined roughly 200 members from other search and rescue organizations that participated in a three-day long mock exercise at Mitford Park amid snowy conditions. The scenario featured both a tabletop management portion as well as a physical response that was coordinated in conjunction with the RCMP, firefighters, Alberta Health Services, Town of Cochrane staff as well as Search and Rescue Alberta.
Among them was senior search manager and veteran volunteer Roger Tetreault, who played a leadership role as a staging area coordinator.
“The role of search and rescue was the boots-on-the-ground portion of the of the event,” said Tetreault, adding that the Canada Task Force 2 based out of Calgary managed the mock Emergency Coordination Centre.
Also known as CAN-TF2, that organization’s ranks is made up of a variety of skilled individuals with professional expertise ranging from technical rescue specialists and firefighters to doctors and structural engineers. Observers from search and rescue groups like Sundre’s were assigned to shadow that operation as a learning opportunity, he said.
Two members from Sundre were also assigned as team leaders who went door-to-door alongside a group of five to eight others who were responsible for notifying residents about the evacuation order as well as taking notes if a particular household required special assistance or if the occupants perhaps refused to comply, he said.
“That would be sent up the ladder and there’d be an enforcement team – if it was real – that would come in to deal with those people,” he said.
“A few twists and turns”
However, there was more to the exercise than planning and executing a coordinated evacuation order.
“They threw in a few twists and turns,” said Tetreault.
“One of the responding teams doing evac door-to-door notifications came upon a staged homeless encampment that had been burnt over by the fire,” he said, adding organizers hired actors in full makeup with specific roles to play.
In the fictitiously realistic scenario, the little tent city’s denizens had no access to information about the unfolding situation and without warning found themselves caught completely by surprise as the flames swept through, he said.
“So there was all levels of injuries from fatalities to walking wounded and people with more or less just mental health conditions that weren’t injured but still needed to be dealt with,” he said.
“It was quite overwhelming for this team that thought they were just going door to door, to suddenly come upon dozens and dozens of people that had been overrun by this forest fire and had all kinds of major medical and psychological trauma,” he elaborated.
“They were tasked with doing a triage for a mass casualty event. It was quite rattling to most of them but they pulled it off,” he said.
“Very realistic”
Another emergency scenario that was staged involved a group of people who happened to be out for a hike when they stumbled down into an embankment they couldn’t climb out of as the fire approached, he said, adding a technical rescue team from Rocky Mountain House was brought in to assist the group.
“It was safer to get them down to the river than back up,” he said, adding a rescue boat was deployed for that part of the exercise.
Although totally staged, the scenario was “very realistic” in the sense that chances are some people could be enjoying a daily outing when disaster strikes, creating an emergency within an emergency.
“It had nothing to do with the fire, but that’s reality,” he said. “Whether it’s a car accident caused by people trying to evacuate an area or another medical condition, you have to deal with everything as it’s thrown at you.”
Technology also continues to play an increasingly important role, with devices such as drones providing accurate eyes in the sky that quickly deliver updates on a fast-evolving situation.
And since reliable communications can also be a challenging aspect of coordinating an emergency response, Tetreault said social media and WhatsApp served well provided cell coverage remains intact. Additionally, receiving live updates in the field by having maps texted to responders saves precious time.
“The old ways of doing things, you got there and you might have a photocopied map of an area and someone’s frantically scribbling notes on it, highlighting areas you need to search. But with the new technology, that can all be dynamic,” he said.
“You’re getting updates on your phone of where the fire’s progressing rather than having to wait until the debrief at the end of the day.”
Dealing with non-compliance
And while most people would in a real-life situation understand why an evacuation order has been issued, some may be less inclined to leave.
“That’s a great question,” he said when asked about the possibility of people who might refuse to comply as the blaze encroaches the community.
“Everybody believes it’s their right to decide their own fate,” he said.
“When we do our disaster response training, there is a component on de-escalation. Probably the most important thing about de-escalation of a situation, is never allowing it to escalate in the first place. A lot of it is just being calm and understanding and trying to put yourself in their situation.”
Going around knocking on doors screaming at people that they must flee for their lives would serve only to instil terror amid an already stressful situation, he said, adding the objective is to calmly inform residents and persuade them to evacuate on their own.
“But under the Emergencies Act, they can be forcefully evicted. And that is something we would never do,” he said, adding search and rescue teams would be responsible for relaying such information up the chain of command.
“It gets sent up the ladder to a different level of enforcement,” he said.
“Our role is to get through as many properties as possible … we don’t wait to watch them leave. So if they choose to go and turn the lights off and go hide in the basement, there’s not much you can do,” he said.
Importance of empathy
Recalling from past experience evacuating Sundre residents during past floods, Tetreault said some people had refused to leave, or snuck back into their homes afterward. And evacuating people with a few pets is one thing.
“(But) how do you convince a rancher to abandon 200 head of livestock? That’s their bread and butter. They’re not going to just walk away from that,” he said, emphasizing the importance of empathy.
“Of course human life is the priority, but you got to understand what these people are up against. They may not leave.”
Another potential hurdle in an increasingly diverse country is language barriers.
“We don’t have interpreters on our team,” he said, adding some immigrant and refugee families have also endured past traumas.
“They can come from a war-torn country where the last time someone in uniform knocked on their door, bad things happened to them,” he said, adding they instead of answering the door “might run and hide in the basement.”
Overall, however, the exercise ran “beautifully smooth” as there had been preparations lined up well in advance to determine the qualifications of members who volunteered to participate. Yet ironically, that was the only portion of the scenario that wasn’t particularly realistic.
“You never have that luxury in a real-life situation,” he said, referring to the benefit of establishing teams ahead of time.
"A fact of life”
In the event of a real emergency, search and rescue volunteers would all show up at roughly the same time and teams would have to be formed on the spot after assessing skill sets as quickly as possible to determine their roles, he said, adding that pre-building teams is something Sundre SAR could do internally to ensure a speedier response should the organization ever be called upon to send a certain type of team.
Tetreault also said he is “really impressed” with the provincial government’s lead.
“It’s hard to ignore what you’re reading in the paper about the threat of the drought this summer and the impending doom almost predicted with this wildfire season they’re expecting,” he said.
“As much as people hate to be inconvenienced, it may happen again … it may just be a fact of life that we live with these things.”
