N.B. legislature honours firefighters after ‘daunting’ wildfire season

New Brunswick firefighters received recognition at the provincial legislature on Thursday.

Members of New Brunswick’s wildfire management branch were honoured in the provincial legislature on Thursday following one of the province’s busiest wildfire seasons on record.

About 100 staff from the Department of Natural Resources were invited to the legislature’s gallery to receive official recognition and thanks from MLAs on the floor.

“Throughout the daunting situation that we had this past summer, not a single structure was lost throughout New Brunswick,” said John Herron, minister of Natural Resources. “This was one of the most challenging wildfire seasons our province has ever experienced, but we had the absolute best team of firefighters to get us through it.”

In all, 438 wildfires were recorded across New Brunswick this year, burning 3,408 hectares of forest. By comparison, 276 wildfires were recorded in the province last year, burning 232 hectares.

The largest fire, dubbed the Oldfield Road fire, burned out-of-control for almost two weeks in August before it was considered contained, burning more than 1,402 hectares of forest.

“It was a long haul,” said Roger Collet, the province’s wildfire prevention officer. “We’re talking almost two solid months of firefighting, along with the work that comes after the fires are out.”

Collet said this year’s wildfire season, which officially ends on Friday, only began to quiet down recently.

“Really, it’s only been two or three weeks that we can say we’re actually out of the woods, so to speak,” he said.

Travis Judd, a regional operations coordinator based in Fredericton, said he and his colleagues were humbled to be invited to the legislature.

“Due to our training and preparedness level, we were able to tackle what we had and overcome it,” said Judd. “As the season winds up, we’re able to now look back… a lot of lessons learned, a lot of things we can look back on, do process improvement, and improve the situation for following years.”

For more New Brunswick news, visit our dedicated provincial page.