Disaster Preparedness Assignment
While wildfires play a large role in shaping and influencing ecosystems, this form of natural disaster can also pose to be a threat to societal safety and functioning. Wildfire management and preparedness is essential in order for not only our environment to thrive but also our community. Wildfires have many negative impacts including but not limited to infrastructural impairment/damage, displacement of community members, wildlife endangerment, exacerbating and or causing acute and chronic respiratory conditions, and contribution to global warming with the release of greenhouse gas/CO2 into the atmosphere.
For my NURS/HLSC 3830 course, I was required to complete an assignment of which I engaged in an online Disaster Preparedness virtual game and reflected on my experience. Below, please see the said assignment, and my reflection on wildfires as an environmentally unsustainable event.
Part 1: Prior to completing the game answer the following questions.
- What scenario did you choose and why?
I chose the wildfire scenario, as I have some personal interest in this sort of natural disaster. Several summers ago, myself (and my family) were actually trapped in a wildfire that had rapidly spread into our campground. As British Columbia, specifically the interior of BC is no stranger to wildfires, I am sure you saw the wildfire that trapped us on the news back in the summer of 2015. It was one of the most terrifying experiences of my life, as the only vehicle entrance/exit to our specific provincial park in Kettle Creek was barriered off by the wildfire, which began to quickly creep down into the site itself. We were all forced to evacuate across the river and watch our campsite blow up in flames, with all of our personal belongings still in there. The planes were swooping down regularly to tree level and dumping fire retardant on the campsite and our vehicles. The flames of the fire were so tall that they actually began to jump the river onto our side, which consisted of a dirt road and a bunch of sagebrush…so obviously this was not a good situation. We were then all instructed to run down the dirt road blindly, not knowing what was to come, and eventually some fire trucks met us on the backroad to cram us all into the back and pick us up. We were all coated in fire retardant, and scared; Many people including my sister were having anxiety attacks and of course all everybody’s dogs were all worked up and going crazy. In that moment of realizing that a wildfire had taken over our campsite I did genuinely believe that I was going to die, and even though, thankfully, we were uninjured, the following weeks to come were no cake walk. We were scooped up by school buses and shipped between towns for accommodation, we had no clothes, no food, no money and no means of personal transportation – so we were all in a very vulnerable position until the fire had been contained and put out, which like I said, was at least a week down the road. - What level did you choose and why? (choosing medium and hard gives you more access to resources but you have a greater area to protect)
I chose medium, as I thought it might give me a bit more of a challenge. I knew that choosing a higher level would give me a larger budget and more resources to protect the town, so I figured the medium level would be a good place to start in order to best protect my population. - What elements of the community do you think will be most at risk?
I think that the local environment is obviously at greatest risk, as well as infrastructure and the safety of the population. Of course, when housing/infrastructure and the population’s psychological wellbeing is at risk and impacted, this can lead to many other significant issues including unemployment, decreased income, lack of education, food insecurity and less access to services.
Part 2: Go to the following website and pick a disaster scenario.
www.stopdisastersgame.org
Read/Listen to the fast facts about your disaster, make sure you understand what your objective is and what key facts you need to collect. Each student should have the opportunity to do their own disaster scenario (your mark is not based on saving everyone in the game but on the quality and insight in your reflection). Complete a scenario as many times as you want. Print off your best results then complete the following in reflection questions.
Complete the game at least 2-3 times.
- Are the elements that you thought were most at risk in question three really the ones that you experienced?
Yes, I definitely found the environment to be at risk, as well as any infrastructure. I did my best to prevent causalities and spent the majority of my funds creating housing/shelter, educating and implementing safety plans for the community. Unfortunately, though every time I played the game, I found it difficult to balance whether I spent money housing, preparing the environment (to help prevent the fire from spreading through dry trees), or add additional protection on the buildings. - What strategies did you use to safeguard the community?
I spent the majority of my funds creating housing/shelter, educating and implementing safety plans for the community. I had very few casualties, and for the most part the number of casualties that did occur reflected the same approximate percentage of the population that was left unhoused when I ran out of money to keep building, so that made sense to me.
I put the maximum amount of money in my hospital, my community center protocols and my schooling to ensure that the maximum safety measures and education was in place for the community. With the left-over money, I tried to remove any dried plants from any highly populated areas or water tanks which I also invested additional money into in order to build protective measures around. - What was the outcome? (attach a copy, screen shot or simply write them here) *see images attached below
- Comment critically on the outcome.
This was my best result after 3 times successfully completing the disaster game. I tried playing the game several times aside from the 3 completed, however the game kept freezing. I found a trend with the game freezing whenever I tried to remove the dry trees and bushes, therefore that was not my top priority the last few attempts. While in my last few attempt I was able to complete my missions and shelter a majority of the population, 50 people were left unsheltered, and I had 50 casualties. As I mentioned above, education and ensuring disaster response protocols was of my top priorities, but in hindsight I should have ensured absolute safety and housing for all citizens and focused on education and procedures afterwards – This may have given me a ‘Pass’. - What were the lessons learned in planning for a disaster?
Sheltering my community population should have been my top priority before trying to save the infrastructure and implementing response protocols. When thinking logically about the scenario, education and disaster response is important, but if not all of the population has somewhere to go in response to an emergency evacuation, then it is inevitable that there will be injuries and/or death as a response to the disaster. - What would you do different next time?
If I were to complete this game once more, I would definitely make sure to provide housing and shelter to my entire population, and then continue to implement education resources and disaster response protocols for the community. Only then would I begin to focus on putting additional protection elements in place in order to protect infrastructure and the environment. - How do you see the role of a nurse in a disaster?
A crucial responsibility as a nurse is to see their clients holistically while taking their context into consideration. While it may not be their role to put disaster protocols into place for their entire community, it is their job to advocate for the wellbeing of their community and ensure that they are available to their community as a support. Nurses and other health care professionals should definitely have a say in what their community’s disaster response protocols look like, as they are educated and experienced in knowing what each facility can take on and where the best resources are for certain ailments. Nurses should have a general idea of how natural disasters can impact their community in order to be best prepare for if that situation were to arise. With sufficient knowledge on how disasters can impact their own community, nurses may be able to at least prevent further injury in a disaster situation through prevention measures beforehand and education for the community to utilize in the present or post-disaster,
Nurses, of course, have the responsibility to respond to disasters in their community, and in my specific case it appeared that there were 50 deaths and 53 injured members of the community. The nurse’s responsibility in this situation would be to potentially have performed first aid on some victims prior to their death, but to definitely attend to the injured community members post-disaster. The extent of their injuries was not mentioned, but I think it’s safe to say that while some of those injuries may be acute, many of them could be chronic and requiring long-term intervention. I think that in a community prone to wildfires, it is a good idea for nurses to be concerned with respiratory illness, not only in the short term due to smoke inhalation, but potentially even seeing trending high cases of asthma and COPD down the road within that community. - What skills/competencies do you think a nurse needs to prepare themselves for a disaster?
I think that nurses need to be aware of housing in their community, as well as available resources for community members to utilize before, during and after a disaster. As I mentioned before, disaster can lead to many other issues with regards to social determinants of health such as housing, unemployment, low income, food insecurity, lack of education and little/no access to services. The more nurses know about these issues and how they can support community members experiencing any of the above, the better they will be able to support their society. - Are you ready? If you are not prepared what will you, do to get ready?
If Kamloops were to be affected by a wildfire, I do like to believe that I (on a personal level) am ready. Because my wildfire incident happened when I still lived at home with my parents, when I moved out on my own with my partner, I have always made it a priority to be ready in case that happened to us here. If I was asked this question when I still lived at home I may not have felt as certain that I’m prepared, however I have always struggled with anxiety which (in this sort of situation) I suppose is fortunate in the sense that I have thought many things through in terms of worst-case scenario in order to mentally prepare myself.
As a nurse, I do not feel that I am ready at all. I don’t feel that TRU BScN Program has really covered disaster response in our program, though I am sure when I am actually in practice as an RN I will be trained by my employer in the way that they feel necessary, which hopefully will include some sort of disaster preparedness. At this point in my education I am very interested in becoming a community nurse, so I will likely get to know our community resources really well and understand what they can do in difficult times for those in need. - Is your home and family ready for an emergency? What steps have you taken to ensure their safety?
We have a significant amount of money set aside in our savings which would be ready to access in the case of any emergency, we each have bags ready for ourselves and our dog with necessities and items of any importance in case we needed to quickly pick up and go. Additionally, we both are lucky enough to work for the City of Kamloops, which is unionized, so in terms of job security we are both in decent positions. This came in handy given our most recent ‘emergency’ of COVID-19 and all of the unemployment it caused for many people. Both of our insurance coverage is very comprehensive, and we have pet insurance for our little girl as well. We each of pretty fair credit limits as well, as in my family’s experience with the wildfire, I was actually the only one who happened to have my wallet on me, and thankfully had enough funds on my debit card as a 16-year-old kid to support us for a few days until my parents could get emergency funding from their bank organized without ID.
Having said all of this, the experience that I had really made me realize how many materialistic things we value in our everyday lives, that at the end of the day, do not matter as long as your loved ones are safe and healthy. We made do for the week without any of our belongings and got to experience just how much impact that community coming together to help those in need can have on others. We didn’t pay a dime for our accommodation, clothing, toiletries or basic food for that week, as it was all donated or organized by community members in the area for us at the time. It also really displayed how much we tend to take for granted in our privileged positions in this world, and definitely allowed to me to gain a much greater appreciation for people who are not as fortunate as I may be. Being in that situation forced a lot of personal self-reflection and I learned so much about myself and our society in that week. - How does the Province of BC and the City of Kamloops deal with the disaster you chose? (This answer should be at least 2 pages in length)
British Columbia (BC) is no stranger to wildfires, with thousands occurring in our province annually. Because BC has significant experience in dealing with wildfires, our province has many protocols in place in order to help prevent, respond and manage these natural disasters, making our BC Wildfire Service an internationally recognized leader in wildfire management. As health care practitioners, we are well aware of how significant of an impact prevention has on societal issues and unsurprisingly this does not only account for health concerns. BC Wildfire Service (2020) outlines actions in place to help to prevent wildfires by means of fire restrictions and bans, some of which are in place year-round (ie. open fire regulations) and others of which are only in place during the high-risk season in the summertime (ie. campfires). Failure to comply with these regulations can result in significant fines, therefore as a member of our community it is each person’s responsibly to ensure that they are educated and aware of the prohibitions in place, as these restrictions can differ between locations in the province (BC Wildfire Service, 2020). BC also helps to prevent wildfires by implementing legal obligations for industry operators to complying with and also by managing and treating high-risk vegetation throughout the year in order to help reduce the intensity of any naturally occurring wildfires in those areas (BC Wildfire Service, 2020).
When a wildfire occurs in BC, the province and our Wildfire Service is fully equipped and prepared for action with the help of its response plan, skillful personnel, technology innovation and commitment to safety (BC Wildfire Service, 2020). As a result, BC Wildfire Service (2020) report a large portion of occurring wildfires are contained and extinguished on the ground efficiently, but of course fires that are difficult to manage will utilize aircraft forces to assist the ground crews in extinguishing the fire activity. In response to provincial wildfires and ensuring public safety, BC Wildfire Service (2020) released a mobile application for cellular devices which summarizes much of the information provided on their website, such as where wildfires are located in the province and updates with the latest news and advisories. Another excellent provincial resource for the educating the public with regard to BC Wildfires is a website called FireSmart BC (2020) which support wildfire prevention, preparedness and mitigation in our province by empowering the public through means of education and increasing community resilience as a whole. FireSmart BC (2020) provide resources such as fire safety tips, virtual webinars, educational magazines, property guides, and success stories for public users to access free of cost.
When I had my experience with wildfires, I recall referring to the BC government website and applications regularly for updates, notifications and warnings. Both the website and application have a user-friendly interactive map which indicates where wildfires are, how large they are, whether they are contained or not, and can also tell you if any arterial roads are closed. Again, this was in 2015 and these features have since been altered and updated but I remember them being very useful resources to utilize. Having lived in BC my entire life, I also recall seeing wildfire risk scale signs along the highways when entering new municipalities or areas of the province. The scale is color coded (ie. red, orange, yellow and green), and indicates how high of risk the community you are entering is for experiencing a wildfire. Unfortunately, many areas of BC are considered high risk during the summer, however this indicator can be a good reminder to the public just how possible it is for a natural disaster to occur in their community and the importance of being both educated and prepared for a fire in ones own area.
Our community is unfortunately very vulnerable to wildfires due to our dry landscape and geographical conditions. The City of Kamloops (2020) has a Community Wildfire Protection Program implemented and in place which is updated regularly to ensure it is current and reliable. This plan is referred to as a sustainable prevention and preparedness program which outlines wildfire risk education and any relevant mitigation efforts (City of Kamloops, 2020). Additionally, Kamloops also tends to its community agriculture by salvaging plants, removing dried out vegetation, pruning and spacing trees and performing tree removal when necessary in order to help prevent wildfires around our community (City of Kamloops, 2020). While aiming for preventing 100% of wildfires is an unrealistic goal, the City of Kamloops (2020) has created attainable goals such as creating safe access for wildfire crews to reach and control wildfires, building infrastructure designed to withstand wildfires, and utilizing techniques which aim to alter wildfire behavior in order to help prevent infrastructure loss.
References
BC Wildfire Service. (2020). Fire Bans and Restrictions. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/safety/wildfire-status/fire-bans-and- restrictions
BC Wildfire Service. (2020). Wildfire Response. https://www2.gov.bc.ca/gov/content/safety/wildfire-status/about-bcws/wildfire- response
City of Kamloops. (2020). Wildfire Protection. https://www.kamloops.ca/safety- bylaws/kamloops-fire-rescue/wildfire-protection
FireSmart BC. (2020). Who We Are. https://firesmartbc.ca/who-we-are/