Travers Fellowship

Two journalists – the team of Jesse Winter and Andrea Woo – are the 2022 Travers Fellowship winners. Their work will be published by the Globe and Mail.

See the news release from Carleton University, which administers the endowed R. James Travers Foreign Corresponding Fellowship fund.

The Story

In 2021, British Columbia experienced a series of devastating extreme weather events, including a record-shattering heat wave, the third-worst wildfire season on record and unprecedented flooding that destroyed major highways and halted movement throughout the province.  

With provincial resources overwhelmed and emergency responders forced to prioritize large communities over smaller ones, some locals defied evacuation orders in desperate efforts to save their homes and livestock, risking hefty fines and public reprimands from government officials. But with climate change bringing more frequent and extreme weather events, experts say Canada will need to consider more all-hands-on-deck responses that engage local communities more directly in their own disaster preparation, defence and response. 

One solution may lie in Australia, which has long had a special reliance on a system of volunteer wildfire brigades. Jesse Winter and Andrea Woo will investigate what role similar groups could play in responding to wildfires and other climate disasters in Canada, whether it be flooding in Manitoba, deadly heat waves in Quebec or ice storms in the Maritimes. What cultural and political ideologies are driving, or resistant to, such an autonomous system in Canada? What can Australia's model teach us about the human impact of taking such personal responsibility in the face of climate disasters? What support systems are required to make this work as safe as possible?  

The Journalists

Andrea Woo is a national reporter at The Globe and Mail. She has 15 years' experience in daily news, most recently covering the COVID-19 pandemic, Canada's toxic drug crisis and extreme weather events. Andrea's work has been recognized by the National Newspaper Awards, the Canadian Association of Journalists and the Jack Webster Awards. 

Jesse Winter is a freelance photojournalist and writer based in Vancouver, British Columbia, with a focus on the intersections of social justice, the environment, and government accountability. He is a frequent contributor to The Globe and Mail, Reuters Pictures, The Guardian, The Narwhal, and Canada’s National Observer. His work has been recognized by the National Newspaper Awards, the Canadian Association of Journalists Presidents’ Award, and the News Photographers Association of Canada.  

The Journalism

The "firies" down under

The Reporter’s Notebook

From Andrea Woo

The exact distance to the fire is now as hazy in my mind as that smouldering field was that February day, but I can estimate the distance by the sights that rushed past the car window. There were the commercial businesses in the downtown core, the hotels, the strip malls and gas stations, the cars that pulled to the side of the road at the sound of the sirens blaring from our vehicle with the state’s fire service, driven by an unbothered commander. The paved roads eventually gave way to bumpy gravel, then to a red dust that kicked up as we navigated our way through twists and turns and chain-link gates, maneuvering around the eucalyptus trees iconic in Australian forests. 

Before long, the terrain was charred ash and the trees alight in orange flames. Dark grey smoke-obscured blue sky – surreal, apocalyptic. Propeller-like blades on towering, white wind turbines rotated steadily, unaffected by the bushfire sweeping through the farmland below. I caught a face full of ash before closing the car window as we sped toward the flames. I looked like a kid on safari.

Photojournalist Jesse Winter and I had had an anxious few days at that point. We had arrived in Australia to learn about the country’s unique dependence on unpaid volunteers to fight bushfires, with an eye to bring back to Canada potential lessons. At that point, our home province of B.C. had experienced its three worst wildfire seasons on record within the span of five years, and there was a growing sense that the government needed to adapt its response in the face of longer and more challenging wildfire seasons. 

The Australian “firies” we met could not have been more welcoming, connecting us with dozens of people who offered invaluable insights into how their century-year-old system works. Still, as I conducted one interview after another in offices, command centres and fluorescent-lit boardrooms, filling notebooks and recorder storage with thousands of details about the operations, culture and politics of the system, it became glaringly apparent that despite months of planning, we still couldn’t schedule a crucial component of the story: fire. I watched as Jesse studied weather forecasts with his fingers interlocked, observing heat patterns and bushfire risk across the country.

Foreign assignments are a privilege in cash-strapped newsrooms, and opportunities to travel rarely include enough time for journalists to wait and see. Typically, these assignments are reactive: Something terrible has happened, go and gather what you can in a limited amount of time and produce the best journalism possible. What the Travers Fellowship granted us was the opportunity to be proactive, to not only search for solutions outside of our borders but to let the journalism take its course without the restrictive time constraints that too often dictate the potential of a story. I’m forever thankful for the opportunity.

We were at a planned ignition when the fire commander with Victoria's Country Fire Authority got the notification of the new fire start at the farm. Upon arriving, we emerged from the vehicle in our wildland fire gear, steel-toed boots and helmets, trudging across yellow and ashen grass to take in the scene. Helicopters and firefighting aircraft rattled above us, and volunteer firefighters – having rushed from their regular nine-to-fives – worked the perimeter, extinguishing in about 90 minutes what would ultimately be a 60-hectare fire. It was everything that we had read, researched and interviewed about, in action.

The success of the model, we would learn, can be attributed in no small part to the ability of these community members to respond quickly, putting out relatively small, local fires before they grow large and unwieldy. While B.C. can’t adopt such a model wholesale – topographical and fuel type differences alone necessitate different approaches – there are important considerations for B.C., especially with respect to our rural and remote community members who have aggressively defied evacuation orders in efforts to be part of the firefighting solution. 

Jesse and I published in June, 2023. The summer would soon obliterate previous records to become British Columbia’s – and Canada’s – worst wildfire season to date, fast-tracking a nascent initiative from the BC Wildfire Service to involve community members in wildfire response.

From Jesse Winter

This summer a firefighter from Alaska – a ‘smoke jumper’ who parachutes into the remote wilderness to battle forest fires – told me “you never forget your first fire.” We were standing on a bulldozed fire guard outside Vanderhoof, B.C. watching his crew drag drip torches through the underbrush, setting a planned ignition to help contain the larger blaze.

I suspect he’s right. And while the fortress of hundred-foot-high flames before us was certainly impressive, it wasn’t the first time I’d been this close to one.

That experience came earlier this year in February, on a forgettable stretch of road in the grasslands of central Victoria, Australia. Globe and Mail reporter Andrea Woo and I were in the country – thanks to the Travers Fellowship – reporting on Australia’s near-total reliance on local volunteers to manage wildfires. We spent the morning with crews conducting a prescribed fire along a roadside to reduce dangerous fuels (in this case, tall and extremely flammable grass). Burning off the fuels beside the roadway is a critical strategy for protecting evacuation routes in case an uncontrolled wildfire were to race through the area as they often do in that part of the country.

I was walking in the middle of the road, keeping pace as firefighters driving ATVs trailing drip torches drove through the ditches, a tail of fire stretching out behind them. Until this point, the winds had been virtually non-existent: the flames reaching dozens of feet into the air straight up on either side of me. One of the firefighters called out, asking if I wanted a ride. I told him I was fine to keep walking. He shrugged and told me I’d better pick up my pace.

A moment later, the wind picked up seemingly from nowhere and a sheet of flame that had been reaching straight skyward bent over and flashed across the road behind me. I glanced at the firefighter on the ATV, who nodded knowingly as I ran sheepishly in the other direction. There really is no substitute for experience.

Dwindling newsroom budgets mean foreign assignments are virtually unheard of today, especially for freelance photojournalists in Canada. Getting to spend a significant amount of time this winter reporting how local experience and knowledge can aid firefighting efforts could not have been better timed. This summer the worst wildfire season in Canadian history showed yet again how critical it is we adapt our own wildfire strategies to better prepare as climate change drives longer and more extreme fire seasons. Looking outside our own borders is a critical part of understanding ourselves.

But for us the Travers fellowship also offered another important opportunity as well: a chance to demonstrate a safe and responsible model for journalists covering wildfires in Canada. For far too long, Canadians have been denied the ability to see first-hand how these fires burn, how they’re fought and the impact that has on firefighters, and on communities. Paternalistic government policies routinely bar journalists from everywhere we might gain independent insight into this critical public issue. We’re turned away from fire zones and from evacuation centers, forced to report remotely with near-total reliance on government hand-out material and canned statements.

Based on our experience in Australia, including their press credentialing system which relies on mandatory safety training and fire-specific personal protective equipment, I was able to negotiate unprecedented access to B.C. Wildfire crews battling the worst fire season this province has ever seen. The goal is to create a similar training-for-access model here, that can allow photojournalists and reporters a way to document what is happening in our forests safely and responsibly. It’s not a done deal by any measure, but without the funding provided by the Travers Fellowship, we’d never have been able to take this important first step towards improved access for all journalists in Canada.

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