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100 Mile House fire camp is like a small city

“Local support always is really good for logistics”
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Firefighters from out of province, especially international, don’t always bring they’re own tents, in which case they sleep in ranger tents, according to Fire Information Officer Heather Rice.

The 100 Mile House fire camp, located at the 99 Mile snowmobile trails, was bustling with activity early in the morning on Monday, Aug. 7. A full kitchen was up and serving oatmeal, ham, fresh fruit and all kinds of other breakfast options. Crews were having their morning meetings and breakfast. All of it in what is normally a wide open field, now filled with dozens of personal tents, ranger tents, trailers with washrooms, laundry facilities, huge tanks of water and much more.

Walking around with Fire Information Officer Heather Rice, she explained that a lot goes into setting up a camp. She says they have to make sure it’s safe, which in this case meant they took the dead top off a tree. Rice says it’s like a mini city. The person in charge of this mini city is Shane Derhousoff, Logistic Chief for the Incident Management Team.

“This camp right now is housing about 300 people. So how it comes together is on the way to an incident we assess if we need a camp. Obviously on this one we did, so we phoned our PWCC in Kamloops (Provincial Wildfire Coordination Centre) and we order the size of camp that we need and I put the request in of what I need on the size of incident that we’re going to. So they phone the provincial warehouse and then I’m in contact with them. Then we order all the stuff you see in here, including kitchen facilities, the size of the kitchen which I determine, the eating area, wash carts off the trailers and all the trailers for servicing the camp,” he says. “Usually, it’s about 80 per cent fire fighter crews and the other 20 per cent would be overhead staff.”

They need kitchen, laundry, septic, portable water, water to dust the roads, propane, fuel, porter potties and more, according to Derhousoff, who says it’s quite the list.

“For the last few years, we have been to many different places multiple times so I keep a book of people we have used in the past but usually the zone, the fire zone in the area that we’re at, usually has a prework so they have some sort of list that I can draw from.”

While the kitchen services come with the camp, they search for many other services locally, says Derhousoff.

“What we try to do is source out local people first, of course, because that local knowledge is so invaluable. Then, once we run out of the local people and the talent, then we go further out and get the provincial people. Most people come from local hires even within wildfire.”

Timing is the hardest part of setting up a camp, says Derhousoff.

“When you make your first meal people need to know when they’re going to move out of hotels or people come into town. When you make that call, Tuesday we’re gonna eat a meal at 8 o’clock, it’s just challenging to make that deadline. At the same time, we’re supporting operations by getting them all their fire equipment, everything at the same time.”

When the start a camp they bring everyone into camp from the hotels etc. to make sure everyone’s together, says Derhouseoff.

“The people that do stay sometimes out of camp are like night shift people. If they’re working the night shift on the line, we usually try to get them into hotels just because it’s pretty hard to sleep in hot bright conditions during the day. Sometimes if we’re 200 miles into the forests we try to get insulated tents for them and try to get air conditioning into their tents.”

He says there’s one thing that particularly helps make his job easier.

“The local support always is really good for logistics. That’s key. If I can find local people, and it seems everywhere I go everyone is helpful, that really lets me key into those services, local knowledge, where to get things where they are. That’s the key for me, to establish that relationship.”

While some members stayed behind, like assistant Fire Information Officer Terry Murphy, who’s also the fire chief for the Lac la Hache Volunteer Fire Department, the fire camp moved to Clinton on Aug. 8.