Photo: Carmen Weld

Building resilience is the theme of this week’s Wildland Fire Canada conference in Kelowna.

Hundreds of representatives from the public and private sector are spending the week at the Delta Grand to hear from more than 70 speakers on wildfire-themed topics.

Opening the conference Tuesday morning was Dr. Satyamoorthy Kabilan, director with the Conference Board of Canada.

His keynote address discussed the conference’s core theme of building resilience for future emergencies.

In his expert opinion there are three key insights in building resilience that centre around utilizing help, building community relationships and relying on good people.

“No single organization, no organization today will be able to survive every single major emergency it faces alone,” said Kabilan.

He said emergency personnel must utilize a range of partners in both the public and private sector. These partners may include the military, provincial or international mutual-aid and the private sector.

“Assistance may need to come from further than you think, you may need to scour the globe,” said Kabilan noting the influx of South African firefighters in 2015.

“Partnerships are important, you can't do it alone, but you've got to build that in early. Exchanging business cards in the midst of an emergency is not the right way to build emergencies.”

He added that a strong, stable relationship between public and private sector workers can build that resilience, but Kabilan said the community itself plays a key component.

One of his favourite stories from the Fort McMurray fire was one of a family that packed their belongings in their truck and drove out of town. While leaving they came across another family that ran out of gas on the side of the highway, the first family dumped all of their prized possessions on the road to make room for the second family and get them to safety as well.

“When we think about the resiliency of a community, at the very core of that is people helping people,” said Kabilan.

“If we don't have the community helping themselves, we don't have resiliency in place.”

He said fostering that sense of community is key in dealing with any major disaster.

Part of that is the spontaneous volunteerism that inevitably occurs. While some emergency personnel may see these well-intentioned untrained helpers as more of a hinderance, Kabilan said these community members are key.

“They will act whether you ask them to or not,” said Kabilan. “It is not an option to hold them back or tell them no, it is your job to integrate them. They cannot do your jobs, but they are going to be able to help you.”

With people in mind, Kabilan also touched on the need for the right people. He said emergency services can have the best equipment and the best training in the world, but without the right people and good leadership they won't be effective.

“The right people with the right attitudes have a better chance of success,” said Kabilan. “People are your pillars.”

He says effective responders are the right mentally-healthy people with the right leadership.

“At the end of the day it is about community resilience and we want to do everything we can to enable that,” said Kabilan.