Private firefighters in Alberta say they’re ready to help with provincial response

With wildfires burning in Manitoba, private contract firefighters from Alberta are in central Canada helping property and business owners protect what they have, but they tell CityNews that they’re ready to help if the province and country would let them.

“So there’s roughly 2,000 private firefighters between 14 different companies, with over 200 private fire trucks. With sprinkler trailers and other pieces of equipment that could be used for wildfire response,” said Kristopher Liivam, with Arctic Fire Safety Services.

Liivam is a private firefighter in Alberta, helping commercial property owners protect their buildings and land during the 2024 wildfire in Jasper, Alberta.

He’s currently in central Canada as wildfires burn in Saskatchewan, Manitoba, and northern Ontario. 

Liivam explaining there are two classifications of firefighters in Alberta and other province’s — type one who work for provincial wildfire and type two who are private contractors. 

He says there are private resources being underutilized in the fight against wildfire.

“That goes across the country,” said Liivam. “So if we could get the type two firefighters up to a type one standard, then they could be used inter-provincially.”

But the president of the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs told CityNews that private firefighters aren’t legally covered to make tough decisions when battling fires. 

“Are those individuals going to be covered if they make the tactical decision to bulldoze down a house? The answer today is no. They don’t have the coverage because they’re not working on behalf of a municipality or jurisdiction that’s given them the directions to that,” explained Chief Ken McMullan, president of the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs.

With wildfires in Canada top of mind, Chief McMullen says fire chiefs across the country are not asking for the creation of a national firefighting force, but instead, better coordination when it comes to sending firefighters. 

“If we have people in our community, as they already wanted to be a part of the firefighting forces, do it in your municipalities. A national firefighting administration would, however, help the coordination of moving firefighters from one part of the country to the other, and we would do that in a very coordinated approach, and we’re not doing that today; it is a gap in the system,” said McMullen.

Alberta’s Ministry of Forestry and Parks, as well as the federal minister for emergency management, were not available to comment at this time.