Lockyer Valley firefighter returns from 2023 Canadian Wildfire deployment

A chance encounter more than a decade ago set a Lockyer Valley man onto a part-time career that would take him to the other side of the Pacific to fight one on the largest fires in recorded history.

A poor result in the Hatton Vale Golf Club’s annual Rural Fire Bridge’s fundraiser led Jason McLean to inquire about what else he could do to support the volunteers.

The next day he had brief conversation at the brigade headquarters and the Lockyer Valley grandfather signed up to a part-time career that would take him all the way to Canada to fight some of the worst wildfires in recorded history.

“I am from a rural background, I like camping and have always had an affiliation with the land,” he said.

“The Hatton Vale RFB is an all-hazard brigade so we get called to a whole range of jobs, some of which are not very nice, but we do help the community.

“When you do flood relief and you see the look of relief on a person’s face then they see someone is there to help them clean out the mud, it is very rewarding.”

With this community spirit in mind Mr McLean was keen to volunteer when the call went out for frontline firefighters to fill a relief team destined for the Alberta wildfires two months ago.

Mr McLean left Brisbane on May 26 and returned on June 30.

Jason McLean, from the Hatton Vale Rural Fire Brigade, on the Alberta fireground during the 2023 Canadian Wildfires.

The first fires were reported in March this year but intensified to record levels by June.

As of August, 5568 fires had destroyed more than 13.25 million hectares, or about 4 per cent of Canada’s forest area.

Mr McLean joined an international relief team composed of personnel from New Zealand, the US, Chile and South Africa, stationed in the Rainbow Lake and Keg River Complex areas.

“Day to day we would be flown into the site, loaded up our gear and hand tools and walked into the fire ground, running up to 5km of hose branching off to where we were doing our suppression work,” he said.

The second detachment of QFES and Queensland Parks and Wildlife personnel who went to Canada to fight the wildfires.

“It was quite different to the Australian scrub that I am used to, with lots of different fauna.

“They have the Alberta rose which has some really nasty thorns that were always getting into our personal protective equipment.

“It was swampy marsh with up to 50cm of muskeg (peat).

“It is strange to see a wet country burn.”

The peat posed a particular challenge as the fire would smoulder below the surface and reappear outside the containment lines.

Jason McLean said it was hard work, done almost entirely on foot.

It was this type of experience that Mr McLean wanted to get out of his deployment as knowledge that would come in handy for Australia deployments.

“Dealing with the peat, I have only seen that once before when I was in Tasmania,” he said.

“They have similar types of forest.”

The 2023 Canadian Wildfires have destroyed more than 13.25 million hectares of forest, or about 4 per cent of Canada’s total forest area.

Like the dozens of Australian firefighters who went over to Canada, Mr McLean also felt there was debt to be paid after some many North American firefighters came here for the horror 2019-20.

One of those deployments relieved volunteers from the Pechey and Ravensbourne fire ground.

“We have all walked away 35 days later as good friends and mates.” he said.

Originally published as Lockyer Valley firefighter returns from 2023 Canadian Wildfire deployment