Image Credit: CFJC Today / Jill Sperling

By Jill Sperling

Back from Australia

BC Wildfire Service members ready to tackle upcoming fire season after time spent in Australia

Mar 4, 2020 | 4:34 PM

KAMLOOPS — The BC Wildfire Service is preparing for the 2020 season, with a few members bringing back the experience of helping out in Australia.

The Australian bushfires of the 2019/2020 season were intense, killing more than 20 people and destroying homes and communities.

“It was bigger than anything we’ve experienced here in B.C.,” said Eric Antifaeff with the BC Wildfire Service, “so their fire season was the equivalent of basically two of our major fire seasons at the time.”

Antifaeff is a staff development specialist for the BC Wildfire Service. He left for New South Wales Australia in early December, working as an air attack specialist for 38 days.

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“I flew around in a helicopter and I supervised the aerial attack of fires in both helicopters and airplanes,” he said.

Image Credit: Contributed by Eric Antifaeff

Antifaeff was one of several BC Wildfire staff from Kamloops to lend a hand in Australia.

Information Officer Jody Lucius returned from a month-long stint in the Australian state of Victoria three weeks ago.

“Really my role was to help provide information to the communities that were impacted by wildfire,” she said, “as well as work with media and other stakeholders and partners to share information.”

Lucius was part of a Canadian incident management team made up of management specialists from across Canada.

Image Credit: Contributed by Jody Lucius

By the time she left Australia, the situation had improved.

“Rain had continued to fall throughout February and the temperatures had actually cooled down versus when we first got there,” Lucius said.

As Australia begins to gain the upper hand against the bushfires, the BC Wildfire Service is preparing for its own fire season, taking some lessons from Australia.

“One think I noticed over there is for them just how quickly conditions could change and how quickly they could react to it, so I would take that back, just their quick response to changing conditions,” Antifaeff said.

Lucius says there is always room for improvement within the service.

“I think just looking at some of the things that they do as far as how they talk about the bushfires there, the tools that they use, that type of thing, if we can implement some of that here over time, that would be fantastic.”