FIRELINE
THE GAMUT OF FIREFIGHTER SAFETY
By Laura King
As a Canadian, I’m impressed that the Canadian Interagency Forest Fire Centre (CIFFC) had the wherewithal to survey firefighters about equity, diversity, and inclusion.
It’s humbling for an employer to learn that a workplace is less than ideal. And it’s even more humbling – and disturbing – to learn that there’s an element of “intentional incivility, harassment and discrimination being experienced and witnessed” among deployed firefighters.
Full disclosure: I am employed by CIFFC as a part-time contractor in a communications role; I have no connection to the survey, the consultants who conducted it, or the firefighters who responded.
CIFFC will address the survey results with a four-phase plan: focus groups and an audit of policies; a respectful-workplace culture assessment report; the development of a national strategy focused on EDI; and the identification of policies and practices to support the psychological health and safety of deployed members.
“We know that not everyone is experiencing deployments in the same way,” CIFFC executive director Kim Connors says in our story on page 18.
“Let me be unequivocal: CIFFC and its member agencies find no place for harassment, bullying, or other forms of disrespectful workplace behaviors by deployed personnel or contractors.”
Firefighter safety, which includes PPE and strategy/tactics, and also bullying and harassment, is a key pillar of the IAWF strategic direction that was developed back in 1997 by the board and president Michael DeGrosky.
I had the privilege of interviewing DeGrosky in mid-January (page 44); firefighter safety, he said, was the biggest and most important issue during his time on the board, and which, of course, led to the safety summit, now an IAWF staple that draws presenters and participants from around the globe.
This year, the 17th International Wildland Fire Safety Summit will be held in conjunction with the 9th International Conference on Forest Fire Research (ICFFR) in November. ICFFR conference chair Domingos Viegas outlines conference details on page 9.
Notably, the CIFFC survey revealed that while respondents felt positive about their deployment experiences, some areas require attention related to workplace culture and behaviors.
Almost 30 per cent of the 530 respondents disagreed that they had been properly briefed by the receiving agency on how to report workplace concerns while on deployment, 10 per cent did not feel they could discuss workplace issues with their direct supervisors, and nine per cent did not feel that humor was used appropriately in the workplace.
Fascinatingly, the consultants said, the results indicate that deployed members love their jobs, and like being deployed through CIFFC, but they are willing to put up with high levels of disrespectful workplace behaviours to do so – which shouldn’t be the case.
Completely unrelated to the CIFFC survey, I asked DeGrosky during our conversation what he thinks is the most important issue the IAWF needs to tackle.
“I think, I think the current focus interest on diversity, equity and inclusion within the wildland fire service is the one of the big topics of our time,” he said, noting that fire-adapted communities and community adaptation to fire are equally significant.
An IAWF/Wildfire magazine survey in the fall of 2020 asked readers to identify topics they wanted to see included in future issues. There were 111 responses to that question; 40 people ticked diversity and inclusion – it ranked third lowest on a list of 20 topics, the top five of which were research and science (pages 16, 22 and 24), fire behavior, prescribed fire, fire effects and fire ecology, weather and climate (pages 28, 40), and international activities and issues (page 34).
As the page numbers above indicate, all those identified topics are in this issue of Wildfire. Our objective is to provide subject matter, stories, and opinion pieces that are relevant to all readers, from researchers and scientists to fire managers, fire-behavior analysts, fuels specialists, pilots, firefighters and officers, mapping experts, health and safety personnel, consultants, and retired folks whose expertise is invaluable.
As always, let us know if we’ve succeeded; email me at [email protected]
