BATUS reviewing wildfire risk assessment policies
By Tim Kalinowski on February 12, 2018.
tkalinowski@medicinehatnews.com @MHNTimKal According to BATUS commander Col. Marcus Evans, his staff has been undertaking a review of wildfire risk assessment policies during the summer training months following the worst year on record for fires within the Suffield range. “Along the TransCanada here, we had some terrible fires on our range,” explained Evans. “The British training team alone put out 190 fires in 2017. That’s the most we have had on record. We knew there was a big fire risk, and the fire we think leapt the northern boundary was sadly started by a Canadian UOD (Unexploded Ordinance Disposal) team. The Canadians responded to it first, and as soon as I was told about the fire, within about 30 minutes, I deployed all my troops who were fire-trained. That’s about 400-500 troops.” Evans said he felt sickened when viewing the out of control wildfire burning through local farms and livestock. “We are all trained to put out fires,” stated Evans. “I myself am a trained firefighter; as are all the people I deploy … I spent eight hours that day with my soldiers and we were fighting about a 25 km frontage of fire together. I was flying with my staff above the affected area, and it was tragic and awful. I can only empathize with those who lost their livelihoods, and who lost their farms.” Evans said BATUS, in cooperation with CFB Suffield and local landowners, will continue to review its training policies when it comes to situations where there is an extremely high risk of fire, as there was for much of this past summer. “We are completely regretful of that event, but we can only try from here to mend fences (with our neighbours), both literally and metaphorically,” said Evans. “And we have to look to the relationship moving forward. We very much appreciate the support we get from our neighbouring ranchers. We will continue to look at how we respond to prairie fires so these sorts of events don’t happen again.” 8
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