Canadian Safety Reporter

2 Canadian HR Reporter, a Thomson Reuters business 2016 CSR | July 2016 | News contain the blaze. For firefighters, it's a job on a massive scale, with safety risks and challenges at every turn. Managing resources Equipment, for example, is a ne- cessity for fighting a fire like this one. Some equipment, though, requires energy to run. In an emergency situation, that can pose a real problem. "One of the concerns the fire- fighters would have had was the difficulty in getting resources for their equipment," says Michael Cadotte, president of Firewise Training & Consulting in Barrie, Ont. "Fuel and electricity would have been non-existent." As for using generators, Cadotte points out that the ser- vices providing these wouldn't have been able to get into the area, at least not immediately. "It's like that in any emer- gency; you're kind of chasing it around for the first little bit," says Cadotte. "And it can be a couple of days until you find the resources you need." Another big challenge would be with the human resources, says Mike Ross, with Safety Works Alberta, in Lethbridge. "As responders, you become engaged in an incident," says Ross. "You certainly see that in large incidents like this, where people begin to take ownership of it." The challenge comes when people have to be removed so they can rest, he says. "You have shifts but the fire- fighters, particularly the ones who initially responded, they don't want to leave." "They would have an added energy to fight this fire," says Cadotte. "They could easily go beyond their means just because of sheer emotion, not wanting to take a break, because this is their community, their homes, their families." Safety is a huge issue for fa- tigued workers, increasing the likelihood of injury and error, ac- cording to a 2012 study funded by the International Association of Fire Chiefs and the U.S. Fire Administration looking at sleep deprivation in firefighters. Since sleep is a necessity for safety, on occasion, firm man- agement is necessary, says Ross. "Sometimes you have to phys- ically remove the workers from the scene, otherwise they hover around on the extremities (and don't get any rest)." In the case of the Fort Mc- Murray fires, the issue of fatigue would have been compounded by several factors, said Cadotte. First, many of the firefighters were on the job for longer than usual, for days or even weeks on end. That means long exposure to intense heat, over a prolonged period of time, and heat stress, which causes fatigue, according to the Canadian Centre for Oc- cupational Health and Safety. "They would have pretty much been continuously wearing per- sonal protective equipment and you're looking at about 80 lbs of equipment," says Cadotte. "You're looking at a lot of meta- bolic heat build up because the gear they wear protects them from external heat, but doesn't allow the body to cool properly, through sweat." When firefighters are able to remove their equipment, they have to deal with another prob- lem. With a typical structural fire, there's a relatively "clean" area where firefighters can breathe relatively uncontami- nated air, says Cadotte, but that wasn't the case in Fort McMur- ray, given the scale of the blaze. "At some point during the day, they would take their equipment off when they could find as good a refuge as was available, and then they'd be exposed to con- taminants in the air." And that, says Cadotte, can lead to health problems down the road. "There are cancers — at least in the province of Ontario — associated with long-term ex- posure to these kinds of toxins." Researchers at the University of Alberta have been tracking firefighters' health by analyzing urine, blood and breath samples collected immediately after they've left the wildfire area. Us- ing a mobile laboratory set up just east of Edmonton, they've tested 85 first responders, so far. "People who are exposed to high levels of smoke have been shown, in other studies, to de- velop acute bronchitis," says Nicola Cherry, an occupational epidemiologist at the University of Alberta. She and her colleague Jeremy Beach are looking for patterns among factors that impact fire- fighters' health, such as work hours and respiratory devices. "It might not be equipment, it might be how they change the filters, or the filters they have for washing their hands," says Cher- ry. "There are a number of areas we can examine." Another factor impacting fire- fighter safety is communication — something that breaks down most often during emergencies, says Cadotte. That's the nature of an emergency situation. "First responders are dealing with a lot of noise, a lot of serious situations going on at the same time," he says. There can also be complica- tions, as groups from other re- gions pitch in to help. "In situations like this, they're dealing with multiple agencies, so communication is a chal- lenge," says Cadotte. "Are they working on the same radio fre- quencies? And there's also the is- sue of co-ordinating federal and provincial resources, which may have different procedures and ways of communicating." Technological problems can get in the way, too. "We rely on digital technol- ogy so much, but it can fail very quickly, " says Ross. "In an in- cident like this, one of the first things to collapse is often the cellular phone technology." In this case, too, the fire was in a remote region where cellular communications aren't reliable. To combat this, organization and constant check-ins are key. "It's very much like a military operation in these emergencies," says Ross. "Firefighters would have the appropriate training so they understand what it is they need to report, how to report it, and then they're in regular con- tact with everybody." Contingency plans would also have to be understood by all. "As far as procedures and strat- egy go, they would need multiple plans in place," says Ross. "If the wind direction would change, for example, they would need to know ahead of time what the change to strategy would be." Mental health While physical safety is an ongo- ing concern in a situation like the one in Fort McMurray, there's mental health to protect, as well. "The most difficult thing in this kind of event would be the emotional end of it for the local fire service because they live in this community," says Cadotte. "It's their people, their homes. Certainly post-traumatic stress would be part of this, since it's their own community." There's an ebb and flow to a firefighter's emotional well-be- ing, says Ian Crosby, co-ordina- tor for the wellness and fitness centre at the Calgary Fire De- partment. "Initially, they're up on a kind of high dealing with the emer- gency. They have all this adren- alin as they're dealing with the fire." But eventually, that wears off. "We're starting to see it now — with a little downtime, there's some reflection and little bit of blaming going on," says Crosby. "It's a normal process but you see there are a lot of emotions start- ing to come out." The families moving back to Fort McMurray will be a rela- tively positive time for firefight- ers, he says. "But then months later, when everyone's gone, the media's gone, and they're dealing with the aftermath of something this big — that's going to be another wave of difficulty." "Professions like firefight- ing, law enforcement and the military — the people who join those professions tend to think of themselves as people who get brought in to solve a problem. They don't like to look at them- selves as having a problem. And that's a difficulty," says Crosby. To help fhandle the stress, many larger departments have a Critical Incident Stress Man- agement Team, often made up of firefighters who've been trained on stress management and can draw from personal experience. "Firefighters don't like to share too much outside their inner cir- cle," says Crosby, so working with fellow firefighters can help. Firefighter < pg. 1 Communication breaks down in emergencies

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