Global Courant
When 15 people died in a fatal accident on a highway in southwestern Manitoba this week, volunteer firefighters were the first responders on the scene.
The crash, which occurred near the town of Carberry, also injured 10 people.
The 25 people were in a small bus that collided with a semi, RCMP said. They were mostly seniors from the Dauphin area, about 90 miles north of Carberry and 200 miles northwest of Winnipeg.
While volunteers make up the majority of fire departments in Canada, fire officials said their numbers have declined since 2016 — despite their key role in responding to emergencies across the country.
Dauphin fire chief Cameron Abrey said volunteer firefighters and even bystanders were among the first responders to the collision.
“I don’t think there is anything that can prepare you for the magnitude of an incident like this,” Abrey told reporters in Dauphin on Friday.
While no Dauphin firefighters were on the scene, Abrey said responding to situations like Thursday’s crash is never easy, especially for smaller fire departments.
“No one has signed up for an incident like this. The fire departments that responded to the incident are not careers,” he said.
“You can do all the training you want…but to actually get to a scene like this, you fall back on your training and do everything you can.”
Manitoba’s fire commissioner’s office has set up support systems for emergency responders who were at Carberry at the crash, and Dauphin has heard from coast-to-coast rescue crews, he said.
“Emergency services are really a small family.”
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Dauphin Fire Chief Cameron Abrey said his department is providing support to the first responders, some of whom were volunteer firefighters, who were at the scene of the fatal accident involving a bus and semi-car near Carberry, Man.
Manitoba RCMP Supt. Rob Lasson said there were dozens, perhaps hundreds, of people who initially reacted to the crash, including bystanders who stopped their vehicles at the roadside to help.
“I don’t know exactly how many volunteers were stopped there, but I know there were a lot of people,” he said at a press conference on Friday.
The people aboard the bus — 19 women and six men — were between the ages of 58 and 88, according to Lasson.
Shared Health, Manitoba’s provincial health service, has identified the 10 patients who are currently hospitalized, meaning everyone who was on board the bus is “presumed dead,” he said.
Volunteer response critical at crash
The Carberry North Cypress-Langford Fire Department, which helped respond to the deadly crash, is made up of volunteers providing emergency services throughout the city and rural community.
The fire service thanked everyone who participated in the rescue efforts in a statement posted on Facebook Friday.
“The coordinated efforts of all of us have been nothing short of astonishing. To the many citizens who helped on the ground, we thank you,” it said.
Cal Funk, a board member of the Manitoba Fire Chiefs Association, said Thursday’s crash “would have lasted much longer than it does now” without the Carberry North Cypress-Langford Fire Department.
He estimates it may have taken about 45 minutes for emergency responders from the nearby towns of Brandon and Portage la Prairie to drive to the crash site, and that volunteers in Carberry likely took five to seven minutes to drive there.
“There’s your difference (between) having firefighters in your small communities as opposed to having the paid professionals in the larger centers,” he told CBC News.
Dauphin Fire Chief Cameron Abrey, who is also the president of the Manitoba Fire Chiefs Association, said more than 90 percent of the county’s approximately 230 fire departments are volunteer firefighters. (mat277/Shutterstock)
Abrey, who is also president of the provincial fire chiefs association, said 80 percent of Canadian fire departments “rely on their community members to provide the service in times of need.”
In Manitoba, more than 90 percent of the province’s approximately 230 fire departments are volunteer firefighters, he says.
But their numbers have decreased significantly and they are not being replenished at the same rate. About 30,000 firefighters nationwide retired or resigned from 2016 to 2022, Abrey said.
“Our firefighters are getting older and the smaller communities don’t have that young population signing up to get involved,” he told CBC News in an interview later Friday.
“Unfortunately, as a community’s population declines, so does their fire department.”
Abrey said Manitoba firefighters lack access to psychological and psychiatric services, but stress management teams at the county fire commissioner’s office have made progress to improve support.
While the work of volunteer firefighters is “critical,” Funk said the mental strain associated with it is heavy.
“We’re carrying quite a large load,” he said. “It’s hard to get it out of your mind sometimes, and that’s probably one of the hardest things volunteer firefighters face is (that) we see things that our bodies were never designed to see.”
He said volunteer firefighters don’t get the credit they deserve.
“Our country wouldn’t survive without the volunteers in our system.”
