I had the honour of being one of the volunteer Australian firefighters who returned the favour to Canada this year for helping us out during the black summer of 2019-20 when we were stretched to our limit.
The similarities between Australia in 2019 and Canada in 2023 were stark and disturbing. Like Australia, Canada was in the grip of drought. Like Australia “unprecedented” was the word of the moment.
While Canada burned this year, so did Turkey, Greece, Italy, Spain, the Canary Islands and the US. The summer of 2023 was the hottest on record in the northern hemisphere and humanity was in wildfire’s thrall.
Across the globe, amid fire there were floods and a seemingly endless stream of other climate catastrophes. None of these individual events can be directly attributed to the carbon-driven climate crisis but together they tell a story that can no longer be denied.
If this is the future, what can be done? The challenge of the climate crisis can, and often does, feel hopeless. All of our individual efforts to reduce our carbon footprint are important but can seem trivial compared with the scale of the problem.
To face the climate onslaught we will need resilience and a key part of building that resilience will be rekindling the ethos of volunteering.
Volunteering has a proud history in Australia. Everyday Australians doing their bit for their communities in fire brigades, state emergency services, St John Ambulance, Lions, Rotary and countless other community organisations. But in recent decades this spirit has waned.
Our existing volunteers are growing older and fewer people are joining. The increasing costs of living and pressures of modern life all make it harder to find time, but we can’t build resilience alone, we need work together.
We need more volunteers and they need more support.
Not every volunteer needs to hold a hose. You may not feel comfortable jumping on a fire truck or piloting a rescue boat through flood waters but behind the frontline there is an army of volunteers providing communications, organising meals and emergency housing, informing the public and helping their neighbours prepare and recover.
Ask around, there is bound to be a role that suits your skill and interests.
Whether they are on the frontlines or bringing up the rear, volunteers need support – from family, from friends and in the workplace.
I couldn’t be a firefighter without the selfless support of my partner and family. Never more so than in 2019 when I would come home exhausted to good meals, clean clothes and loving hugs. While I was out on the trucks, my wonderful family dealt with the mundane duties of everyday life, the worry about my safety and even the stress of preparing for evacuation when fire was forecast to threaten our own home. You may not be able to volunteer yourself, but if you can support a family member who does that is just as valuable as if you were holding the hose.
If the support of my family made volunteering easier, work has sometimes been a different story. In October 2019 I wrote an email to my manager thanking them for releasing me for a few days in the previous fortnight and hoping that the worst was over. Little did I know. As the days became weeks and then months, the tensions with my city-based manager grew. It was only when blankets of smoke brought the scale of the emergency home to Sydney that the tension eased and they suggested an article about my firefighting for the newsletter. I was floored!
As volunteers we don’t expect to be paid when we respond to an emergency, but we would like to know that it won’t threaten our jobs. As an employer or manager, if you can’t jump on a truck please support your employees who can. A more resilient community benefits us all. Being a good corporate citizen is good for business.
This winter I drove the inland route through NSW to northern Queensland. Everywhere I looked I saw vigorous growth of grassland and forest understory, nurtured by good seasons, which my firefighter brain called “fuel”. This season won’t be a repeat of 2019-20 but it won’t be easy. Australia has always been a land of drought and flooding rain but climate change has amplified these extremes and to survive we need to develop resilience. That resilience will depend on a community of volunteers.
• Dr Geoff Goldrick is a scientist, educator and volunteer firefighter
