Rangers gain experience fighting Quebec wildfires

Four Adirondack rangers return from two-week assignment

By Mike Lynch

Less than a day before smoke from Canadian wildfires drifted into the Adirondacks, eight New York forest rangers, including four from the park region, returned from assignments in Quebec with experience and optimism that that state should benefit from their help north of the border.

The rangers had completed a  a two-week stint of battling fires in Quebec. 

The rangers had been assigned to the Micoua Fire Complex, which has burned more than 40,000 acres, in the eastern part of the province. The fires are among the hundreds that have raged across 24 million aces in Canada this summer. 

In a press conference Monday, the rangers, who had returned to New York the previous day, described the fires as widespread, difficult to control and in wilderness terrain that was tough to navigate and access. 

Gary Miller, who is from Hamilton County and was a crew boss during the assignment, monitored the scene from a helicopter and said he could see fires for miles, and that the fires are expected to continue until the winter. 

“Mother Nature, I believe, would be the only way to put this thing out,” Miller said. “It’s just too dry up there.” 

Miller, who was on his ninth fire-fighting assignment outside the region, said the rangers traveled to Micoua, about 6.5 hours northeast of Quebec. 

“(There was) pretty much one road in and one road out,” he said.

And once on the ground near the future, rangers found the landscape challenging. 

“We were in a river bottom and there were 900-foot cliffs just all the way around us,” said Lincoln Hanno, who patrols Herkimer and Lewis counties. “The country up there is pretty rugged.”

While in the region, the rangers were joined by wildland firefighters from Maine, New Hampshire, and Vermont.

The base camp consisted of about 200 firefighters and about eight helicopters, Miller said. About 80 of those personnel were some of the top firefighters called “hot shots” from the western U.S., while SOPFEU, Quebec’s fire fighting agency, had about the same number there. 

The New York rangers said the experience will help them fight future wildfires in places, such as the Adirondacks. One thing that was emphasized on their stint was the value of helicopters, which they view as imperative in fighting fires deep in the wilderness. 

Helicopters were used to taxi the firefighters to fires. Miller called the pilots “extraordinary” for their ability to maneuver and do water drops right onto the flames. 

“They let the fire go until it hits a wet area and then they use their helicopters to control it,” he said. 

The firefighters also used hoses that tapped into natural water sources and would stretch for miles. 

State Department of Environmental Conservation Commissioner Basil Seggos noted that New York communities has also  been hit hard by natural disasters recently. He pointed out that floods disrupted several places, including the Adirondacks. In addition, smoke from the Canadian fires passed through the Adirondacks on several occasions, including Monday, causing air quality alerts. 

He said leaders need to adapt to their emergency responders planning for natural disasters but also deal with the root cause of them. 

“I think what we see is the pace of severe weather, the pace of damage being done to our environment is accelerating,” Seggos said. “We need to change the way that we treat our environment with the amount of emissions that we are spewing in the atmosphere and what that does to climatic patterns. You know, this is the crux of the problem.” 

This was the third stint for New York rangers in Canada this summer, and Seggos said it’s possible more could be sent in the near future. The rangers indicated they gained valuable experience and anticipated that their help would be reciprocated if it were ever needed in the Empire State. 

“They’ll come help us if we can help them,” Hanno said.