Canadian Occupational Safety

8 Canadian Occupational Safety | www.cos-mag.com UP CLOSE Battling the beast Fort McMurray fi re chief lauded for level-headed leadership By Amanda Silliker O n May 3, 2016, "the beast" ran through Fort McMurray, Alta. It destroyed 2,400 homes and buildings, nearly 10 per cent of the town. More than 85,000 residents were required to leave their homes, making this one of the largest evacuations in Canadian history. By all accounts, it was a huge success with no injuries or fatalities within town. The man at the helm of it all was Darby Allen, regional fi re chief of the Regional Municipality of Wood Buf- falo, who entered into a well-deserved retirement in February. He became the face of the wildfi re, providing status updates on TV and online with calm reassurance. Widely celebrated as a national hero, Allen was the leader that the town, prov- ince and heavy-hearted on-lookers from Canada and around the world needed in a time of immense distress. "The people here are devastated. Everyone is devastated… This is going to go on; this will take us a while to come back from, but we will come back," Allen told the CBC on May 4, 2016, the second day the fi re ripped through Fort McMurray. When refl ecting upon the success of the evacuation, the fi rst thing that comes to mind for Allen was the deci- sion to split the evacuees, sending 25,000 people north and 60,000 south. Fort McMurray only has two main arter- ies to get in and out of the town. "If we hadn't have done that, then we would have had more problems getting everyone out of town because of the congestion on the roads. The roads were already congested, it was already tight, and I do feel there was certainly more potential for people being trapped and injured in their vehicles on the road if we hadn't of split that up," he says. Allen is also particularly proud of the way his team communicated to the public throughout the crisis — social media was the primary method. "Everyone has a phone now. It was a bit of a no-brainer, really. First of all, you don't have a lot of time. You need to get information out quickly to a lot of people, so you're not going to phone around to every business, every school and every house; that's impossible," he says. "We knew if we got into radio stations and TV stations and we got it on Facebook and Twitter, we would get most of the people, if not 95 per cent." All media releases were issued through social media. In the eve- nings, Allen regularly appeared in 30-second videos posted to Twitter to provide updates. "Any type of project you do, com- munication is always key, but in this one, it was obviously vital," he says. "I don't know of any better way we could have done it." Allen's ability to stay level-headed under pressure was highly regarded throughout the evacuation. He credits his being a fi refi ghter for 29 years as keeping him calm in stressful situa- tions. One of the things he is the most proud of is how he and his leadership team treated the workers (up to 100 individuals) in the Regional Emer- gency Operations Centre throughout the evacuation. "We never, ever raised our voice; we never shouted at anybody; we never lost it, as they say, under pretty stressful conditions. I am really proud of that." Although he has witnessed count- less stressful situations as a fi refi ghter, this was the largest event Allen had ever seen and there were some emo- tional moments. He would sometimes get choked up when he was appearing on camera and when having diffi cult, personal conversations with his staff. For example, on the big day of the evacuation, a worker whose house was about to burn down came to Allen and said he had to go home to rescue his dog. "I said to him, 'I know this is hard for you and I know what you want to do but you can't do that and there's two reasons for that. First of all, the traffi c is so bad you'll never get there and even if you get there, you won't be able to do anything. And secondly, I really need you to stay here and do your job because there is no one else to do your job right now.' And we both had a little cry and he stayed and he lost his home and he lost his dog. It's terrible but he is still a good friend of mine and sometimes you just have to make diffi cult decisions," Allen says. ALLEN'S CRISIS MANAGEMENT ADVICE Successfully navigating the larg- est wildfi re evacuation in Alberta's history makes Allen a bit of a crisis management expert. He now trav- els across Canada sharing his story of the Alberta wildfi re and speaking on trust, leadership and teamwork. As a fi rst step, he says all organiza- tions need to conduct a risk analysis to determine their biggest risk. These risks could be fl ood, fi re, terrorist threat, hurricane, earthquake or cyber hacking, says Allen. "Everybody is different. McMurray's biggest risk was obviously you're sur- rounded by trees and you could have a wildfi re. But what was the likelihood of that happening? Pretty remote but it was still a risk," he says. Once the risks are identifi ed, a crisis management plan needs to be put in place. A key component of this plan is personnel. Allen says it's "vitally important" to discuss these plans with the individuals involved and to go beyond simply outlining their duties. "We have never sat down with them and said 'How do you feel about that? How do you feel if we are evacuating the whole town, we are going to leave you in a room in that town to take care of things for us? How do you feel about that?' Is he the right person to do that? Is he mentally the right person to do that?" When in a crisis management lead- ership role, leaders need to act fast. Allen often only had fi ve or 10 min- utes to talk with his team and make a decision. "What areas do we need to go? Who needs to go fi rst? What's the timing with respect to how much traffi c is on the roads? Where are we going to put them? All those things are going on quickly and with really not a lot of time to think about it," he says. "You need think about what you think is the best possible scenario, what's the best possible answer and decision you can come to and go with it… Make the decision right now, otherwise it's too late. It's happening that quick." Allen's other tips for leaders include listening to all the information that comes in, not getting too happy when things go well or too down when things go wrong and being "completely and utterly supportive" of your employees. "Telling them they are doing an incredibly wonderful job on a regular basis. I don't mean once a day; I mean walking around and tapping them on the shoulder every hour is good, it's not over the top," Allen says. "When you are in a real crisis and people are falling apart, they need somebody to tell them it's all going to be okay and they are doing a good job." It's important all workers under- stand their job makes a difference in getting through the emergency — no matter what the task. Allen relates it to a large jigsaw puzzle. "If we get to the end of this day and one of the pieces is missing, it doesn't matter if you're the king of England or the person who is responsible for cleaning the bathroom, the piece is still missing, so the puzzle is not complete, and our job is to compete this puzzle," Allen recalls saying to his team when the evacuation began. Allen says he would be lying if he didn't admit the wildfi res pushed him to retire slightly earlier than planned. Him and his wife have now settled into a condo in the heart of down- town Vancouver and they love the new lifestyle. "We walk every day and we go and sit on a bench by the ocean. We sit there and we just realize how lucky and how blessed we are," he says. "And we might have a beer along the way." Darby Allen

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