Can you cover three miles in under 45 minutes with a 45 pound pack on your back?
If you can, Mike Dewey might have a job for you.
Mike Dewey is the company owner and Chief Crew Leader of Boulder Mountain Contracting Ltd. based just 10km north of Barriere, British Columbia.
Boulder Mountain Contracting is in the business of fighting forest fires, supplies first aid services, and are currently actively recruiting for their 2018 season.
Mike tells that his first forest fire fighting experience came in 1969 when he was working for Gilbert Smith Forest Products Ltd.
“In May of that year they had a small forest fire at North Lake,” tells Mike, “I worked on it, and when I got home I told my wife Georgia that I had found my life’s work.”
Mike embraced his life’s work, and the business he created as a result, also involves his family as well, with daughter Sarah Dewey being Boulder Mountain’s second-in-command, and son Gabriel, a crew leader. Sonin- law, Mikael Kjellstrom (a paramedic), looks after the Boulder Mountain website, photography and payroll in his spare time.
Mike says he has always believed you should train to be the best that you can be, a mantra that he tells his firefighters, and then tells them to do some more.
“Our training courses are for seven days,” says Mike, “We do three-and-a-half days in the classroom and then three days of field work up at my place, running pumps and burning piles of brush to make the training as realistic as possible. This is way better than we have to, as B.C. actually only trains for our type of crew for two days max.”
He notes a good part of their training program is ‘Performance Based’, a program they followed when training and fighting fires in the U.S.
“We worked in the states fighting fires until 2012, and we have kept their training requirements which is higher than here in B.C.,” said Mike.
He says training for fitness is an integral part of the job and that Boulder Mountain found it “much better to train for ourselves”, which resulted in them signing a memorandum of understanding to teach in Canada using the U.S. firefighting courses.
Mike also alluded to the fact that back when people were pulled off the street and out of their vehicles to go and fight forest fires in B.C. (hence no experience or fitness for the job), forest firefighters were not thought of very highly. But companies like Boulder Mountain have changed all that.
“The government firefighting course in B.C. is a type 1, what we teach is a type 2,” says Mike, “We also teach Level 3 First Aid to our returning firefighters at no cost, and commonly we have at least half our crew with Level 3.”
Mike tells that Boulder Mountain has worked very hard over the years to separate themselves from similar contractors such as themselves by providing “more top of the line training”. He says Boulder Mountain also supply and maintain the best quality tools, equipment and personal protective equipment, and provide more experience.
“Every fire I go to I tell the guys we have to prove ourselves. Now when we go to a job those on site often come up to us and slap us on the back and say, “Man, are we glad to have you here”.
Mike says the company remains small in size but professional and respected in stature. “We train people, and we have three, five person crews going at any one time.”
Asked if his firefighters stay on year after year with Boulder Mountain, Mike replied, “Some decide they don’t want to do it, some work for someone else, but I prefer to have people on our crews that I have trained myself.”
He notes he is currently recruiting trainees for the coming season, which means he is taking written applications at this time.
“We have about 20 applications in now and will continue to take them for awhile. I have to have about 25 people that we have fully trained,” said Mike.
Asked if there is always work in fire fighting he replied, “There are years when there is no work, but it all depends what happens during the fire season. Last year we trained in the rain, but all it took was three weeks of dry weather and then fire season started. We had done two weeks in Kelowna sandbagging due to the flooding, and then on the way home we could see Little Fort going. We then fought the Thuya Creek fire there for two weeks. Then Sarah and Gabe were sent to the Cariboo with crews, and I went with a crew to the southeast.”
Is the wage lucrative?
“For the first 60 hours we pay more than minimum wage, then it goes up another two dollars. Where you really make the money is the overtime and double time,” said Mike, “We typically work two weeks straight and that provides really good overtime, then we get at least two days off before we go out again. People don’t complain about the wage. Our people made a lot of money last year.”
Mike says his wife Georgia used to be the company office manager but is now retired. However, both Sarah and Gabriel are very much a part of the company, both hands on and in-the-field.
“I like training people, and I like the puzzle of it,” tells Mike, “It is the best game ever. You have to combine working safely with working efficiently. We just finished eight straight claim free years.”
Asked if fighting fires has lost any of its luster over the years for him, Mike replied, “For me this job only gets better.”
If you would like more information about Boulder Mountain Contracting Ltd., go to: www.wildfire.ca or email: information@wildfire.ca