Kirby Booker is Quesnel's fire inspection and prevention officer. She grew up in 100 Mile House where her parents own a ranch and has been fighting fires since she was in university.
Booker has a bachelor's degree in English and history from Thompson Rivers University, a bachelor's degree in geography and anthropology as well as a master's degree in English from the University of Victoria. She also has certificates, including a teaching certificate. She also has certifications for both wildland and structural firefighting and said the Quesnel Fire Department paid for her structural firefighting training.
To help pay her way through school, Booker signed up to fight wildfires throughout B.C. in summers and taught field schools abroad in winters.
"Lots of those skills carry over. The wildland firefighting or archeology field work or natural resource field work. What you're actually doing is different but the environment like you're living in a tent outside. It's physical labour, working with a team and navigating complex terrain," she said. "I'm pretty sure I got my first few archeology jobs because of my firefighting background where they're like 'oh you know how to suffer. Great!' archeology and firefighting have that in common for sure."
One of her biggest finds in archeology was unearthing the third ancient Chinese coin found in the Yukon.
"(It was) unexpected to to find. I'm usually finding stone tool artifacts which are much older but still very cool to find and just speaks to the diverse multicultural history in the Yukon that people aren't always aware of," she said.
She also took part in projects in places like the Galapagos Islands where she was on the first team who dug on San Cristobal Island. While there she was teaching a field school and was part of a team that was looking into when invasive species were brought to the islands.
"We found lots of very interesting bones telling us what animals were imported there and things like that," she said. "Just a very cool place to work. Completely different environment, those big iguanas are just hanging out while you're digging there." She said it was a great group of people and she was glad to see most of them go on to work in the archeology field.
She also hopes to see people sign up to volunteer for their local fire departments.
"We have a whole network of excellent rural fire departments in the regional district so wherever you live, if it's something you're sort of interested in, applications are online," Booker said. She added that the Quesnel Fire Department deeply appreciate its volunteers and said their businesses and families are supportive enough to allow them time to help others during emergencies. She said the Quesnel Fire Department has lots of opportunities for its volunteers to get training and different certifications.
Booker said one of the best parts about firefighting is the team aspect and being to rely on her teammates from training to fighting actual fires.
"You form very trusting, close relationships with people that you otherwise might have nothing else in common (with) but you have a shared goal in common. So the ability of it to sort of bring people together in that way always impresses me," she said. "And I saw that here when I joined this department as well. It hasn't gotten old yet."
Booker was one of the Quesnel firefighters sent to Jasper as a strike team task force leader to help battle the fire that destroyed over 300 of the town's structures.
"We got there at night and it was quite dramatic," she said. "It's very windy and it was nighttime and quite stormy. So we didn't have really any view of the town until we got there so it's not as if we saw the fire from a long ways away." She said the main fire had already moved past the town.
"As you approach Jasper there's numerous entrances and as soon as we got to those, we could see the glow of multiple structures burning. Embers blowing all over in the wind, debris from buildings that had already burned on the roads," she said. "We obviously knew when we left that the fire had entered the town, but it's still different seeing it especially after being up all night driving. If we were tired before, we weren't tired as soon as we got there."
Booker said the common training between departments allowed them to have an "all hands on deck" approach to fighting the fire, they successfully defended the town's critical infrastructure, making it easier for residents to return once the evacuation was lifted.
"You never know what the next challenge is gonna be. Each challenging experience we go through, it just makes us better for the next ones," she said.
Something Booker appreciates about Quesnel is the diversity of natural areas.
"There are very different ecosystems whether you go east, west, north, south, you can be in a completely different micro-climate," she said. She's also interested in the town's history, with her archeology background she is deeply interested in learning more about the history of Quesnel.
She also likes cross-country and downhill skiing and hike throughout some of the best spots around the area. Her Bernese mountain dog, Hilo, loves to be out with her while she does.
"Everyone knows Hilo, they don't know who I am," she joked. "Most people just know me as Hilo's owner."
As a fire prevention officer, Booker also had some fire-safety tips for people in Quesnel. She said one of the keys for people is to simply have a plan.
"The intention is not to be afraid all the time of what might happen and be thinking about it all the time. It's more, if you take 10 minutes to think about it. Set something aside like a small kit in your house," she said just taking the time to plan out what to do in an emergency can help. "It really makes a huge difference. You might even be able to help somebody else who isn't as prepared."
Outside of being home, Booker suggests looking at emergency maps in places like hotel to have an idea of what to do in an emergency. She said just taking the time to think about little things like an extra bag of pet food or an extra phone charger can help in an emergency whether it's a fire or even a highway washout.
Booker also suggested people check the FireSmart and NFPA Fire Escape Plan websites for information on how to keep their properties safe.
