The grey, smoky skies we’ve experienced lately put the wildfires in the forefront of our thoughts. These skies are side-effects of the traumatizing fires many people across B.C. have been experiencing all summer.
People have lost their homes and businesses. Fire departments have even lost their firehalls, and that didn’t stop them from working.
Across Greater Victoria, several departments sent firefighters and firetrucks to the Cariboo to help. Municipal firefighters help protect infrastructure such as homes and businesses. Provincial firefighters are strategically monitoring and fighting the fires in the forests and rural areas.
Tens of thousands of people have been evacuated from their homes this summer and they had to go somewhere. Municipalities and organizations such as the Red Cross contribute financially to the aid. Reception centres are staffed primarily by volunteers who travel to be there.
Whether they are serving meals, filling out forms or helping people with special needs, these volunteers are essential.
After listening to stories from Metchosin firefighters who went over to assist, I heard parts of the story that I hadn’t heard before.
They shared stories of rotating 12-hour shifts spraying down lumber at a wood mill. The job sounds isolated and lacking action, but the mill was the primary employer for the town. If one ember landed without fire hoses keeping things wet, it could have burned up the entire mill and destroyed the economy for the entire town.
The least exciting task was saving thousands of jobs. The public might never even know about the work at the wood mill, but that’s because what the firefighters did was effective.
When things don’t go wrong, people are often unaware of all the efforts expended. An urban planner I work with explained to me that planners work hard to ensure things don’t go sideways.
Emergency management is similar — working hard to ensure things don’t go wrong and, in the case of a natural disaster, creating a plan that is going to be the most beneficial and effective while ensuring the least amount of loss.
After a couple of weeks on the job, a Metchosin firefighter was running out of clean clothes. He asked a local resident who was volunteering where he could do some laundry.
The town had been evacuated, the streets were empty and businesses had been closed for weeks. The resident told him to put his dirty laundry in a bag and pointed where to leave it and said she would do what she could.
He followed her instructions and a few hours later, his clothes returned cleaned. For the following days, he noticed other bags being left there.
It isn’t just the people on the front line who deserve recognition. There are plenty people behind the scenes who are also making contributions, big and small. Working together, we all win and it doesn’t matter the size of the contribution.
People from neighbouring towns would bring pet and livestock feed for the firefighters to give to the animals left behind. Donating pet food might not be action-packed, but to the animals receiving the meals and to their owners, it’s a huge deal.
Neighbours who stayed behind were travelling to their friends’ homes and clearing out fridges. With the power out for weeks, they were trying to keep things in order for when the families returned home.
Often when devastation hits, it’s easy to stop ourselves from helping by saying: “What can I really do?” If I were facing an inferno, I would feel helpless, but I could do someone’s laundry, donate some pet food or check on my friends’ homes. We all can do these things.
It’s the small things that go unnoticed when people look at the big picture, but these little things add up to make big changes. The people helping behind the scenes don’t do it for recognition and that adds more value to these acts.
We should share more stories of creative contributions; I know there are hundreds. When we hear creative ways people have helped, it can remind us what we can do when the time comes.
Charla Huber works in communications and Indigenous relations for M’akola Group of Societies.
