When Reese Lange was in kindergarten, she dreamed of joining the police. But it was in high school that she realized her true calling.
The 21-year-old is now part of an army of young men and women, many of them college students, who are spending their summer battling what could be one of Canada's worst fire seasons on record. But the risks they face were brought home last week by the death in British Columbia of Devyn Gale, a nursing student.
She said the tragedy had bonded her class of 31 student firefighters, underscoring their shared goals of saving lives and watching each other's backs. Ken McMullen, president of the Canadian Association of Fire Chiefs, said “a great deal of students" are involved in wildland firefighting. “We do see an increase of wildland firefighters, because it's a pay opportunity, whereas volunteering in your communities is not a pay opportunity.”
In May, Uwazny and Lange spent five or six evenings fighting wildfires that burned about 62 square kilometres in Parkland County, west of Edmonton.Already they feel like they are part of the firefighting community, and Uwazny said the loss of Gale felt like “losing a family member.” Like Gale, she was 19 at the time. She said news of Gale's death left her in “shock and complete devastation," as Gale's circumstances resonated with her own former life. Seguin now works in health care in Manitoba.
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