An Alberta Emergency Alert was issued on July 23, 2022, advising visitors and residents of Nordegg to prepare for evacuation.
The warning came shortly after an evacuation order was issued to Clearwater County on July 21, 2022, due to a 200-hectare wildfire 19 km west of Nordegg.
Seventy-eight firefighters from Alberta are also working with 11 helicopters, two heavy equipment groups, and one wildfire representative from BC to bring the blaze under control.
As of July 25, 2022, the wildfire near Nordegg is no longer classified as out of control.
On Monday, Quebec will also send three groups of 20 firefighters to Alberta to assist the province in battling its many wildfires.
These firefighters will be accompanied by two agency representatives, two meteorologists, two strike team leaders, a helicopter operations coordinator, a fire behaviour specialist, and a logistics section manager.
They are pulling out all the stops to bring this wildfire under control, but why is Quebec helping? They aren’t exactly close in terms of distance, right?
Exactly, but Quebec is a signatory to the Canadian Agreement for Mutual Aid in the Event of Forest Fires. This basically allows Quebec to come help if Alberta is burning, and vice versa.
According to the official Alberta Wildfire Status Dashboard, there are 32 active wildfires, with one occurring in the last 24 hours of writing this article. That’s a mind-boggling 680 in the current year, 45 of which have occurred in the last seven days.
Needless to say, wildfires in Alberta are a common occurrence. However, in the face of record-breaking COVID-19 numbers, Banff and Canmore are preparing for firefighter staffing shortages.
In Banff, 10 percent of the city’s workforce have come down with COVID-19. In Canmore, 9 percent of the workforce also tested positive for COVID-19.
Both Banff and Canmore are included in Alberta’s south central emergency management agreements. These agreements allow for mutual aid in fire response services. It’s a real “you scratch my back and I will scratch yours” agreement. But you need people to be healthy scratch in the first place.
With this in mind, the municipalities of Banff and Canmore have agreed to help each other in case too many firefighters are off sick as a result of COVID-19. Even if shortages don’t happen, it is important to remember that each firefighter is incredibly valuable and irreplaceable.
