Though his job is challenging and can be dangerous at times, Jacob Potter is thrilled he’s carrying on a tradition.
The Tseshaht First Nation member is on the Port Alberni-based Thunderbird Unit Crew. The crew, nicknamed the T-Birds, was an all-Indigenous firefighting team when it was established in 1992.
Potter, who is 23, is currently the only Indigenous member of the 22-person crew, which is part of the BC Wildfire Service. The T-Birds started off as a 20-person crew. A 2022 uplift expanded the crew by two members.
Potter joined the T-Birds during the summer of 2021. He applied for the position after he saw a social media posting by fellow Tseshaht member Leon Gallic, who was retiring from the crew after 16 years of service.
“He put up a post on Facebook that I saw just asking for Indigenous applicants,” Potter said of Gallic. “So, I reached out to him. He helped me with the application and the interview. And I got lucky to be on the crew there.”
Potter recalls he was intrigued by Gallic’s posting.
“At the time, I was just working at Canadian Tire,” he said. “I was 19 years old when I applied. I was pretty much almost right out of high school.”
And he credits Gallic for assisting him during the interview process.
“I didn't really have much fire experience,” Potter said. “But Leon really helped me kind of make my resume stand out.”
After his application was sent in, Potter was selected for an interview. During the interview process he faced a three-person panel and was asked various behavioural questions.
Gallic remembers providing Potter with some advice prior to the interview.
“I told him as a First Nations person, we're trying to make a presence of ourselves again,” said Gallic, who spent the last few years of his firefighting career working as the Vancouver Island representative, serving as a First Nations liaison/recruiter. “This is why I'm recruiting First Nations people.”
Gallic added Potter didn’t know much about what the T-Birds job consisted of.
“He sounded very confident,” Gallic said. “And I told him to use that confidence and it will take him leaps and bounds. And now it is.”
Despite his relatively young age, Potter was made a temporary crew leader earlier this year.
“As a crew leader, I'm responsible for four crew members,” he said. “So, on the 22-person crew, there are four squads. Each squad has a crew leader.”
Potter said he is thoroughly enjoying his job.
“I love it,” he said, adding he’s rather proud of his promotion this year. “It's helped me grow significantly and I definitely want to make a career out of it.”
Gallic is thrilled that a fellow member of his First Nation is following in his footsteps and is on the Thunderbird crew now.
“It's so heartwarming,” he said. “I am so proud.”
Even more so because he is getting positive feedback about Potter’s efforts.
“I've heard nothing but good reviews about him,” Gallic said. “I'm still connected to some of the higher ups. They said he is one of the best workers that they have worked with. And he's moving up the ranks like no tomorrow.”
News that Potter is now a crew leader is also uplifting for Gallic.
“I’m not surprised, not at all,” he said. “But I am so happy.”
Battling wildfires throughout British Columbia – and at times in other provinces – is one of the main responsibilities for those on the Thunderbird crew.
“The past few years have been really busy, averaging around six deployments,” Potter said. “And deployments last for (about) two weeks.”
Last month Potter and his T-Birds colleagues travelled to Manitoba, for just over two weeks, to assist with efforts battling wildfires in the province. For weeks this spring communities in northern Manitoba were under evacuation orders that have only recently been lifted
And earlier in June Potter found himself helping out with the Nahmint fire, deep in Nuu-chah-nulth territory, south of Sproat Lake. Believed to be human-caused, that fire emerged on June 8, growing to 19 hectares.
Besides dealing with wildfires, Potter’s crew also provides emergency response to issues HE floods.
“The rest of the year, like when there are no fires, it's a full-time job, Monday to Friday,” he said. “And during those down times, we prioritize training, like getting chainsaw training, getting water delivery training, just trying to get the team as cohesive as we can before fire season starts.”
Firefighting can be an arduous job and it’s definitely not for everybody.
“What appeals to me the most, is I definitely just like the camaraderie we have,” Potter said. “It's a job where I'm around the same 22 people almost every day. And we get really close, kind of the interactions we have every day just kind of brings me back. And it's also like a high-adrenaline job. And that also pulls me back every year for sure.”
It’s a job he wants to keep on doing for the foreseeable future.
“I think it's definitely hard on the body,” he said. “But there are further career options in BC Wildfire, where it's more like desk-oriented. But I think I'm just going to work on the crew as long as I can.”
For now, Potter prides himself on the tasks he is fulfilling with his fellow T-Birds. He derives satisfaction from looking back on a hard day’s work, such as kilometres of trail the team might cut to improve forest access.
“It's just super fulfilling and I just like pushing myself and learning more and more what I'm capable of,” said Potter. “It's just always growing.”
