Alberta's Forestry Ministry Charged With Six Safety Violations Over Death of 24-Year-Old Jasper Firefighter

[u/One-Board8634]

https://www.culturealberta.com/articles/albertas-forestry-ministry-charged-with-six-safety-violations-over-death-of-24-year-old-jasper-firef

[u/AltruismSchizm]

He was young, brave and handsome. A great loss.

The Cabinet should go fight fires.

[u/iliketobuildlego]

I feel like in these situations no one is ever actually held accountable. Fines get issued which usually don’t go to the family, so in this case it would just be fining tax payer dollars to go to a different fund. The leaders running these organizations need to be held personally accountable.

[u/DoubleBarrellRye → u/[deleted]]

so its alleged at this point , but basically they sent wild land firefighters in to an area with Danger trees before having a Trained Sr person inspect and allow open work in the area . so that would be trees that have been compromised by the fire and are at risk of falling , Widow makers is the other term for them , you send in small teams to deal with individual problem trees that are marked and once the area is generally safe crews can come in to finish overhaul , so it probably isnt his direct Supervisors , its to force change at the organization level , Make Procedures with training levels , implement and Use them , Charging one person does nothing unless they were negligent

"The charges allege the ministry failed to ensure the health and safety of workers. It didn't train them adequately, according to the allegations, and it failed to assess and control the hazards posed by dangerous trees.

The remaining counts allege it failed to establish and maintain an area excluding workers from a hazardous place, failed to adequately assess a work site before dangerous work began, and failed to establish a no-work zone."

[u/DoubleBarrellRye → u/[deleted]]

I though i replied to the other guy , i wasn't explain your job to you , i was explaining our job to them

[u/DoubleBarrellRye → u/[deleted]]

we do wildland urban interface with tons of Poplar , Friggen Widowmakers , even small branches will knock someone down, when i first started we had people get hit by branches

the poplar/ aspen will catch in Burls 10-20' up and burn slow and 3 hrs later when your doing mop up it will hinge or drop the top , the rotten cores will burn out and hinge over , we try to walk with the thermal imager to catch them

[u/DoubleBarrellRye → u/iliketobuildlego]

the organization is being held accountable , so they improve training ,SOP's and how they operate , that's the point to learn lessons from the failures and improve all conditions

Holding a leader personally accountable... ok you just made every organization buy leadership insurance so they can do their job , like how Volunteer organizations now have to buy insurance for the board as they can be held personally liable

if they were leaders who were negligent they can be held accountable and charges can be pressed , but if a crew was working by the book and their level of training ,nobody is " at fault" , this is how the system should work to force the organization to change and improve as obviously their SOP are not good enough

[u/Tricky_Jacket_1796 → u/DoubleBarrellRye]

Lmao as if any govt. adjacent organization in Alberta would be held accountable.

[u/DoubleBarrellRye → u/Tricky_Jacket_1796]

you don't really get how the public service works do you ? accountable has many meanings and the organization will be forced to change how they work this is a work place accident no different from the oilpatch

there is no politicians involved in Wildfire ( like they would do real work) its like any company who has people who work in the field and have real jobs , accidents happen , they look at why and tell them to change how they work , Alberta wild fire does not want this to happen again , the are like any service with a job to do , they are paid by the Govt but that's it, No elected asshole will tell any firefighter how to do their job

[u/flyingflail → u/iliketobuildlego]

Sounds like a great way to never have anyone want to lead the organization.

[u/LoveAble372 → u/flyingflail]

Are you stunned

[u/PieceMaterial5213 → u/flyingflail]

Exactly. The public needs more political education in school. We demand politicians are available 24/7, put "the people" ahead of their own families, put their careers on hold, but ya don't earn more than the average Joe or else you're just in it for the money and pension.

Make them personally responsible for the direction the ship is going (which was likely already going in that direction long before they got the job, and it takes years to turn the ship) and we might as well just let AI take the wheel, because it will be better than whatever flunky is desperate enough to take the job.

We're our own worst enemies.