MERVIN — The Wildfire Suppression (OW-313) course was held April 9 and 10 at the Mervin Complex in Mervin, with 34 participants in attendance. Participants hailed from Glaslyn, Loon Lake, the RM of Frenchman Butte, Turtleford, Mervin, the RM of Britannia, Kivimaa, Moonlight Bay, St. Walburg, the RM of Mervin and Maidstone.
Those who attended came from all walks of life – volunteer firefighters, councillors, co-ordinators and the general public. The instructor was Chris Skarbon, a forest protection officer with the Saskatchewan Ministry of Environment. This course was organized by mutual aid co-ordinators Walter Gobert and Elaine Reeve.
Lunch was catered by the Mervin Heritage Book Club and coffee breaks were sponsored by the NW Mutual Aid Area.
A co-ordinators’ meeting was held March 19 to discuss the organization and how it fits with the ICS System. Members talked about the importance of training together as a mutual aid group and picking folks with training from all areas. With small numbers, if something big happens, it will take everyone working together to get through it.
Following last summer’s evacuations, the organization brought in the Red Cross with speakers Dave Kyba and John Halliday to identify challenges that would be of interest to the registration and inquiry organization. They also gave out ideas that worked well for them that could be used as guidelines in the registration/reception centre manual.
Two years ago NW Mutual Aid put together a mutual aid manual with guidelines for requesting help from the MA Area and who pays for what. This is also designed to trace requests, training members have taken and resources that municipal MA members will share if needed.
Everyone still has much to learn and many practices in the form of tabletop exercises, eventually getting into a full-scale mock disaster, which takes time and work to put together. As time goes on, more folks are getting involved, but to truly carry this off members are needed from all communities helping out in whatever capacity they can. Let someone in the organization know you are interested and they will find a job for you.
