It's not just Smokey the Bear that can prevent forest fires: meet Crystal Fajt. (Photo submitted/Crystal Fajt)

By Nick Nielsen

Local International Firefighter

Prince Albert woman helping coordinate fire fighting responses in U.S.

Aug 23, 2024 | 6:00 AM

With busy wildfire seasons like the one we’re experiencing now, it’s common for firefighting units to share resources to different areas that may need them. It isn’t any different when it comes to provincial and even national level fires, and one resident in North Central Saskatchewan has been a major part in helping fight fires outside of our borders.

Crystal Fajt is the Provincial Response Centre Coordinator for the Saskatchewan Public Safety Agency, and she is also one of their Air Operations Branch Directors. She’s in charge of helping coordinate shared firefighting efforts when Saskatchewan firefighters are needed elsewhere, working with organizations from Alberta, B.C., Northwest Territories, Yukon, Alaska, Idaho, Montana, Oregon, Washington, and even Hawaii.

“I look after all the air support, so the helicopters and the air tankers, and I make sure that they’re being utilized in a safe and efficient way, I deal with the operations chief. So he’s the one who looks after the ground crews and I make sure that what we have can support what they’re doing and so that we can keep the crews safe and helpful with what their plan for the day is.”

When it comes to firefighting equipment, a lot of the things they use on a day-to-day basis are specialized and therefore expensive. Because of this, Fajt makes sure that these pieces of equipment are shared to where they are needed to help fight fires the most efficiently.

“We don’t have to have such a huge stockpile because we can rely on other provinces or other states to help us out. We actually just imported 20 firefighting crew members from New Brunswick, so they’re heading back home. They just finished their tour and they were in Saskatchewan helping us as well.”

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This year’s wildfire season has been a busy one compared to recent years. With a large fire in the Jasper area in Alberta and a number of wildfires in the U.S., there have been a lot of resources shared amongst the different organizations from personnel to waterbombers to smaller equipment.

“I would say we’re busier than average. The last two seasons have been quite busy. We’ve also had seasons where we were very quiet and then we can send resources out. We’ve sent aircraft and personnel to Alaska, to Alberta, to British Columbia, to Northwest Territory, so we travel around a lot. Whoever is required for those agencies, we will support that. We also have, for example, we have fire hose in Alberta right now that’s helping them on their wildfires.”

Water bombers and helicopters such as the ones seen here can be refilled and refueled in less than 10 minutes before heading back to the fire. (Photo submitted/Crystal Fajt.)

Fajt has spent time this summer helping fight fires in Labrador and Oregon, and while she is out of the province she is in charge of coordinating the helicopters and air tankers to make sure they have the proper resources to get through the day.

“I tell them their missions for the day. I look after their fuel, their lodging set up, the helibase so that they’re able to park and fuel and get all that sort of thing, and then I give them their missions for the day, I line up medevac machine, so if we need to pull someone out due to an injury or something that we have a machine that’s dedicated for that as well.”

This year Fajt has also been involved in using drones to help with fire suppression. While the obvious benefit is that an unpiloted plane means no one is put in any danger, there are some other added benefits.

“A huge one on these fires were visibility. So we couldn’t use helicopters because they need two miles in the states visibility and the drones can fly without that visibility requirement, so they were able to get in when the aircraft couldn’t, we used them a lot on the fires down in Oregon actually.”

While the idea of sending firefighters around the world may sound rare, it’s something quite common according to Fajt.

“We’ve sent up Air Ops Branch Directors to the States before, we’ve sent Air Ops Branch Directors to Australia, we send crews, fire investigators, we send aircraft loaders. We’ve sent people all over the world, actually.”

For now, Fajt is spending her time back home tending to her garden.

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panews@pattisonmedia.com