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David Yager – Yager Management Ltd.
Oilfield Services Executive Advisory – Energy Policy Analyst
July 19, 2017
The air is smoky and the setting sun is deep red. The Calgary news carries continuous health alerts about smoke risk from the wildfires ravaging central B.C. The province says since April 1 there have been 642 blazes with the highest concentration in the Caribou region. Some 160 are still burning. News reports say 37,000 people have been evacuated and moved to safety in Kamloops and Prince George. Another 13,000 have been warned they may have to move. There is no major rainfall forecast at the time of writing which would greatly assist containment efforts.
Grave concern is expressed by everyone particularly B.C. politicians. In an interview July 16 with KamloopsBCNow.com Emergency Management B.C. minster Todd Stone, speaking outside the emergency reception centre in Kamloops stated, “We’re throwing every available resource at this thing”. He spoke about other places offering shelter like Chilliwack, Vernon and Surrey until it was safe to go home. If, of course, there will still be a place to go home to. Trying to provide assurance Stone said, “We’re doing everything we possibly can to be there for you”.
On the other side of the great divide Canada’s largest unknown and unrecognized fleet of fire protection and emergency response equipment is still waiting for the phone to ring. Eight oil services companies – Bravo Target, Firemaster, Fire Power, Hellfire, HSE Integrated, Safety Boss, Scott Safety, Superior and Trojan – own and operate about 75 high capacity (1,200 to 2,000 gallons per minute) industrial firefighting trucks that can pump large volumes of fire retardant foam or water all day long so long as there is an adequate water supply.
In telephone interviews with all eight companies on July 17, not one had any of its fire control assets contracted to the province of B.C. or any of the affected municipalities. There had not even been an inquiry. Several had smaller fire protection systems in the field with private asset owners of oil and gas production facilities, drilling rigs or other industrial operations potentially affected by the fires. But none of them were working for any government agency.
When Minister Stone says everything available is being deployed, that is simply not correct. But this is not a new story. It happens every year during forest fire season. While those affected by evacuations or the loss of their homes would like to believe their governments are throwing everything including the kitchen sink at protecting their assets and communities, this is not the case. It has never been the case. Everyone should be asking why.
From 2003 to 2012 I was the Chairman and CEO of HSE Integrated Ltd. which became Canada’s largest supplier of oilfield industrial firefighting, fire protection and emergency response services. Everything in oil and gas is flammable so it is only logical an industrial firefighting fleet would grow with the business.
The primary market is frac protection whereby multi-million-dollar pressure pumping spreads run hot and hard for extended periods of time. Refueling on the fly has proven to be a higher hazard operation than previously thought resulting in dangerous and disastrous losses. Operators also stimulate some wells with extremely flammable gelled hydrocarbons pumped at high pressure to deliver enhanced production from water-sensitive formations. So the oil company or service contractor hires an oilfield fire truck on standby just in case.
Another market is emergency response where everything from production facilities to storage tanks to rail cars and tank trucks leak, spill or catch fire and require suppression and containment. Again, hydrocarbons are flammable and therefore dangerous when not property contained.
The last major market is asset protection from wildfires. This is when an out-of-control forest fire is encroaching upon valuable assets like drilling rigs, natural gas plants, oil batteries or storage tanks. Equipped with adequate supplies of water, if the fire gets too close the big pumpers create a safe interface, hold back the fire, and prevent the flames from damaging the protected assets. Eventually the forest fire runs out of fuel, the assets are safe, and the firefighters and their trucks head home.
There are two classes of firefighting assets in the oilpatch, industry and municipalities; committed and uncommitted. Committed assets are the fire department at an airport, a refinery, an oilsands plant or your community. They are committed because they were purchased and staffed to respond to fires in a specific location. If they travel further, say to the interior of B.C., they leave the assets they were intended to protect unattended. Therefore, they don’t go very far very often.
The oil service industry supplies uncommitted assets working from a home base; “Have pumper will travel”. They are staffed by industrial firefighters with extensive training in the high-risk challenges of hydrocarbon firefighting. While they are not necessarily woodland firefighters, who go into the forest with its unique hazards and challenges, nor structural firefighters, who enter burning houses and buildings to rescue people and pets and even fight the fire from within, they are excellent asset protection firefighters to contain a fire before it damages assets or structures. Water from fire trucks is very effective on burning wood.
The challenge with oilfield firefighting is when spring break-up occurs the frac protection business slows down due to road bans. Utilization of these expensive assets is quite low. But this is forest fire season. Every November and December, when we developed next year’s budget, we committed to try once again to get on the call list with provincial and municipal fire authorities to offer our equipment and services for asset protection. As a fire gets close to a town we would set up one or more trucks, bring in a source of water (tanks or a pipeline to the nearest river, lake or slough) and prepare for the worst. Everyone in the business has approached government agencies to get on the call list if the unfortunate occurs.
For asset protection, industrial clients regularly contract oilfield fire protection service to be on standby to protect assets from an encroaching fire. But getting hired by provincial or municipal agencies responsible for protecting houses and communities has proven almost impossible. The companies make their pitches and sometimes arrange contracts and pricing. However, the message is always the same. “We’ll call you when we need you”. And we are never needed, even in 2011 and 2016 when Slave Lake and Fort McMurray were devastated.
With the B.C. fires back in the news I phoned all eight companies and asked if they had even been approached by fire control authorities in B.C. to help. The answer was a universal no. Several had tried to reach anyone who would listen to no avail. The news reports daily on how firefighters are arriving from all over Canada plus a few spare fire trucks from municipalities in B.C. and Alberta. Apparently 50 firefighters are on their way from Australia.
But contrary to the public pronouncements of Minister Stone, “every available resource” is not being employed. One fire services provider has mobilized equipment for asset protection in the B.C. interior but this was for a private company, not the government. There have been a couple of exceptions. One outfit reported working for the Regional Municipality of Wood Buffalo for 18 days after the Fort McMurray disaster and two companies were engaged in Kelowna in 2003, the last time B.C. suffered a fire season this devastating. Another firm was contracted by private companies in Fort McMurray to protect assets, but not by a government agency.
A why won’t government’s hire these companies? Employ every resource available? A common response is that wildland firefighting is a specialized service and the oilfield firefighters don’t have the right training. No doubt, oilpatch firefighters are not trained to go into the woods, read the situation, create fire breaks and prescribed burns to contain a blaze, and tackle forest fires up close and personal.
But the oilfield firefighters’ experience in protecting assets like houses and buildings from an encroaching forest fire is extensive and successful. One company talked about being hired by a lumber operation in High Level. The fire came right up to the edge of the property and it was stopped right then and there. The fire never spread to the flammable wood, buildings or sawdust inside the fence. This story has been told repeatedly as these companies saved millions of dollars of assets from destruction.
Water is essential, but that’s not a problem in B.C. or for the oil and gas industry. Most communities are on a river or close to water. With the advent of high volume fracturing, the oil service industry has developed significant expertise in moving large volumes of water to support frac operations. Find the water, rig up a pump, lay the line and fill the frac pool prior to well stimulation operations. It is done every day on multiple locations. Nobody in Canada moves more water from wherever it is to wherever it needs to be than the oil and gas industry.
Should somebody want to protect a town they would, depending upon the size of the community, engage one or more fire trucks from one or more of these eight companies, plumb in some water through one of the frac support companies, and bring it on. As one of the operations managers told me, what these firefighters are trained to do is, “get the wet stuff on the red stuff”. This is what firefighters train for and look forward to. 99% of what happens in the oilpatch is standby fire prevention. Thanks to the rigorous safety standards in the oilpatch, they don’t get the opportunity to practice their trade that often.
There are a lot of theories why governments won’t hire oilpatch industrial firefighters regardless of the size of the forest fire and the amount of damage created when it destroys buildings and dwellings. Public emergency response officials are good at evacuating homes and communities to ensure the people don’t get hurt. But recent experience in Alberta, and now B.C., proves they either can’t or won’t mobilize all available equipment and personnel to create a water-saturated, non-combustible interface for asset protection.
The cynical say the government won’t hire private oilpatch contractors because they aren’t unionized. One can only hope this is not the case. One person interviewed thought the perception was oil service contractors would charge too much even though in some cases the rates are pre-negotiated. Several companies had contracts with the Alberta government that have never translated into work. A friend who works in a senior capacity with Alberta safety services figures there’s an ego element to the firefighting business meaning we don’t need those arrogant oil and gas guys Hollywood makes movies about (think of John Wayne in “Hellfighters”). The whole business is certainly a trifle machismo, but the province isn’t spending its own money. Private companies, supported by their insurers, certainly find the cash when a forest fire looks like it could do major damage.
Brian Jean, MLA for Fort McMurray-Conklin and leader of the Wildrose Party Official Opposition, grew up in Fort McMurray and lost his home in the 2016 wildfire. When asked if there might be a different way for governments agencies to handle wildfire disasters he responded, “Industry firefighting teams are as motivated, well trained and capable of fighting fires as anyone but too often they’re an after-thought for public officials. This was certainly the case in Fort McMurray last year. The Alberta government’s report on the wildfire response says, ‘the oil sands industry had considerable financial and economic value at stake and took the wildfire’s threat on the northeast flank very seriously’. Wildfire suppression should not see public officials protecting turf, but instead using every asset available, public or private, to protect people and infrastructure at risk”.
But probably the most discouraging aspect is perpetrated on the people who are evacuated by governments claiming to use every available means to ensure they will still have a mobile home, house or apartment and precious belongings to return to once the fire threat is gone. But too often the system lets them down. The people are safe but their dwellings and possessions are destroyed. And some of the personnel and equipment that might make a difference don’t get the opportunity.
This is not to say oilpatch firefighters are miracle workers. Forest fires are nasty business. But so are oil and gas well blowouts, tank fires and burning hydrocarbon storage facilities. To say the oil service firefighters could have saved parts of Slave Lake or Fort McMurray is conjecture. But given a couple of days to rig up the trucks and a water supply to the nearest river, lake or reservoir as a precautionary measure, when the fire got too close those big oilpatch firetrucks and the industrial firefighters would have put up one heck of scrap.
With proper plumbing and preparation, they would never run out of water. And unless they had to evacuate for reasons of personal safety, there will be more houses and buildings still standing than under the current mode of operations. Whatever wildland firefighters can do – and this is not to criticize these brave professionals in any way – they cannot save houses or structures without the proper equipment. The oilpatch has lots of it.
There must be a better way to put all available resources to work when forest fire disasters strike. I spent nine years trying at HSE. And five years after I left the company, I’m still trying.
About David Yager – Yager Management Ltd.
Based in Calgary, Alberta, David Yager is a former oilfield services executive and the principal of Yager Management Ltd. Yager Management provides management consultancy services to the oilfield services industry in a number of areas including M&A, Strategic Planning, Restructuring and Marketing. He has been writing about the upstream oil and gas industry and energy policy and issues since 1979.
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David Yager can be reached at Ph: 403.850.6088 Email: yager@telus.net
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