N.S. wildfires: Facing extreme danger, why firefighters answer ‘their calling’

As a staggering number of large, out-of-control wildfires in Nova Scotia show no signs of slowing down on Wednesday, hundreds of firefighters from various regions are putting themselves in the face of danger with an all-hands-on-deck approach.

In an interview with Global News on Wednesday, Brendan Meagher, captain of Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency, shared a story about an act of heroism when two firefighters drove through a flurry of flames to save an elderly man, who is living with dementia, who was trapped inside his home.

“I spoke to the captain that was on that truck and he wasn’t sure if they were going to get out of there, they took a big risk to save a life,” he said.

“They did a remarkable job to get that man out of his home and into a safe place.”

Meagher said his crew was heading towards the Pockwock Road direction when he first received the call, which took him to the opposite side of Yankeetown Road, therefore making it difficult to reverse course and return to where the man was located. Fortunately, he said the responding crew members were in the area at the time.

“I reported to our district chief that there’s no way we could access it from our end … and they (firefighters) jumped in the chief’s pick-up truck and drove in through that (fire) and got that man out of his house and into the truck,” Meagher said. “Just a remarkable feat of courage.”

Meagher, who’s also president of the Halifax Professional Firefighters IAFF Local 268 branch, reiterated the firefighting community’s commitment to ensuring people’s safety, even if it comes with the dangers of putting their own lives at risk.

“For us, it’s what we sign on for, we take this job to help people, we’re part of the community,” he said. “We’re trained to fight fires and sometimes it’s hard and sometimes it’s out of anyone’s comfort zone to do what we do.”

He assured his members will be there every day until the fires are under control.

“We’re here when things are bad and that’s what we do, we go in and we don’t go out, it’s our calling,” he said. “We’re all in this together.”

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Meagher summed up arriving Sunday afternoon to witness the blaze moving across Hammonds Plains Road and rapidly spreading further into two words: surreal and terrifying.

“Within 10 minutes it went from no fire on Yankeetown (Road) … to everything on fire,” he said, acknowledging a severe lack of visibility for firefighters as they drove past trees engulfed in flames from all directions while hundreds of embers crashed into their windshields.

Moving forward, Meagher encouraged people evacuating to “please leave early” if fires continued to spread in order to avoid travelling amid hazardous conditions. The fire in the Tantallon and Hammonds Plains area has now increased by 50 hectares since Monday, remaining uncontrolled and amassing 837 hectares.

“Everybody that’s watching, be ready to go if this area expands,” he said, adding that the dry and warm weather on Wednesday and Thursday could cause conditions to change quickly.

Dave Meldrum, deputy chief with Halifax Regional Fire and Emergency, said his crew is doing everything they can to provide responders with a healthy rotation as firefighters from “pretty much all the stations within the Halifax Regional Municipality” are currently involved in fighting the blaze.

“Crew rotation is critical, it’s getting people on the line, letting them do the work that they love to do, but ensuring that they get off the line and they get rest, they get nutrition, they get hydration.”

He said there were eight fire engines, 14 tankers, two Department of National Defence brush trucks, and around 100 firefighters at the scene Wednesday.

There are also two units and six firefighters from Charlottetown, and crews from DNRR Emergency Health Services, RCMP, and Ground Search and Rescue.