The aftermath still weighs heavily on two workers who got stuck in the middle of a forest fire during a failed rescue operation in James Bay last summer. A traumatic event for which these immigrants from Burundi, then employed by the Society for the Protection of Forests from Fires (SOPFEU), claim they were unprepared.
Posted at 5:00 am.
With his arms covered in burns, Thierry Setu barely remembers the hours before the July 10 accident. “I’m just happy to be alive,” he breathes, looking into the distance.
Five years ago, this Burundian refugee came to Quebec and worked every summer in Abitibi-Témiscamingue as a brush cutter for a private company while waiting to receive his permanent resident status.
After the government imposed a ban on access to the forest last spring due to the historic wildfires, he was forced into unemployment. He was offered to join the ranks of SOPFEU as an auxiliary fighter.
These seasonal workers are not forest fire fighters, but rather support them in their work in the forest.
Since there were bills to pay, the choice wasn’t difficult. “It was either that or I stayed at home and did nothing,” remembers Thierry Setu. Despite everything, happy to be able to serve and “help” people, he embarks on the adventure.
Stop “smoking”
At the beginning of June, SOPFEU offers a three-day short training course. His compatriot and colleague Jean-Claude Tigjane, who also arrived from Burundi almost a year ago, is also there. In particular, both learn how to put out “smoking” fires that are still active beneath the forest cover.
Both agree: Driving through a forest fire was never an option.
They told us we would never come into contact with fire.
Thierry Setu
“You can’t teach someone to walk into the fire in three days. We were told we would put out the smoke,” insists Jean-Claude Tigjane when contacted in Edmonton, where he lives with his family.
Then on July 10, while they were waiting for a return flight due to the intensity of the wildfires, their team leader in James Bay received a call.
“We couldn’t refuse”
A group of eleven colleagues are stuck around 100 kilometers away at La Grande-3 airport and can no longer take off from there by helicopter.
PHOTO MARTIN TREMBLAY, LA PRESSE ARCHIVE
The area around La Grande-3 airport has been devastated by the largest forest fire ever recorded in the province.
On board three trucks, one of which is manned by two Hydro-Québec employees, the two relief workers and their team leader set out on the Transtaïga road to rescue them.
” We do not have [eu] the choice, recalls Jean-Claude Tigjane. Our leader said to us: “Let’s go, come, we’ll help the others.” We couldn’t refuse. »
The situation on the street is chaotic. A video taken a few minutes before the accident by Thierry Setu shows the ominous sky covered in smoke, the flames surrounding the vehicles, the strong wind blowing across the taiga.
“We crossed a first cloud of smoke and then when we got to the next one it was impossible to get past it. We turned around, but returned to the first smoke…” he recalls with a trembling voice and lets his sentence hang.
Wait for death
Surprised by the smoke, the first two vehicles in the convoy got stuck. The troops are surrounded by flames. “We stayed in the truck for an hour and a half, waiting to die,” recalls Jean-Claude Tigjane.
PHOTO FROM A SOPFEU REPORT
The truck driven by Thierry Setu during the July 10 accident was recovered shortly afterwards
In a panic, Thierry Setu gets out of the truck in which he was sitting alone, hoping to escape. Here he is burned by burning rubble. In its factual report, the SOPFEU determined that the “immediate cause of the accident” was that he was not wearing the top of his fire-retardant suit.
Rather, the latter claims that he was never prepared for the possibility of finding himself in the middle of a fire. “There was a mistake,” he insists.
Both men are still unemployed today. For Jean-Claude Tigjane, the injury is mainly psychological.
For three months I never slept more than two hours. I had nightmares, all I could think about.
Jean Claude Tigjane
Thierry Setu had to undergo physiotherapy as his burns forced him to sleep on his stomach with his arms raised. He continues to see a psychologist and tries in vain to return to work.
The only serious accident
SOPFEU responded by admitting that training for deputies “does not specifically address the situation in which a truck crosses a fire,” an aspect reserved for the training of forest firefighters.
However, part of their training focuses specifically on “safety during combat operations”, particularly the “application of the combat and evacuation plan and emergency procedures”, explains their spokesman Stéphane Caron.
It is therefore incorrect to claim that the training of auxiliaries does not contain elements regarding the procedure to be followed in the event that they find themselves in the middle of a fire in an emergency situation.
Stéphane Caron, spokesperson for SOPFEU
In addition, the question of wearing “personal protective equipment” is discussed in detail and repeated “regularly” in practice, emphasizes Stéphane Caron.
But the events of July 10 were an “industrial accident,” he agrees. “These workers should not have driven vehicles through a fire. »
With around 5 million hectares of forests affected by fires in Quebec last summer, a record in the last decade, SOPFEU recalls that there was “no other major incident”. [n’est] occurred during the season. “Under these circumstances, this is a remarkable record that needs to be highlighted,” says Stéphane Caron.